Aspiriled introduelion lo In The Alternativettvroductton to Bio/agicar An thropology,

aut hor Jonath an Mar k s pr esent s an innovative trame- .~

biologi eal anlhropology lhal work ter t hink ing about th e majar issues in the field
loslers a deeper underslanding with Iou rt een or iqinat essays design ed to correla ta to

01 eore eoneepls and

the eore cha pte rs in sta nda rd textbooks . Each cha pter
draws on and comptements-c-but does not reccn stit ute
IHE ALIERNATIVE INI RODUCTlON 10
Ihe abilily to think erilieally le xce pt for th e sake of cla rityl-the maja r data and
ideas presented in sta ndard texts. Marks explores such
tapi es as how we make sen se of data about our crlqtns. wh ere our m odern ideas come fro m.
our inabitity t o sep rate natu ra l fects from cu lt ural fact s and vatucs as we try to under stand
ou rselves . a nd the soc ial a nd political as pec ts of sci e nce as a cultu ralty s ituate d mental activity.

FEAT UR ES
Dlfers cle a r; inte llige nt, a nd comp letely ori gina l discu ssion s -inject ed with a se nse of
hu mor-that will keep st u dents re a ding
BIOL OGIC AL
Add resses e o re topies in a way that does not simpty m irror what is in the basic textbo oks but
olfe rs a new spin . thereb y fosterin g critica! thinking
.................................... .................................
Com plem e nt s tr aditionat te xtbocks in biologica l ant hropology and explores connections
be twee n biolog ical and g enera l a nthropology
ANTHROPOLOGY
Provides ex p e rt integra tio n of tapies. ccb ere nt na rratives . an d saUent examples

Ut ilize s the m e sta te me nt s al the sta rt ot e ac h chapter tha t int rod uce the bre adth 01
informa tio n covered a nd engag e st uden ts in the mate ria l

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

J ona tha n "M a r -ka is Prof e ss or 01 Anthropology al the Untverstty of North Caro lina at Cha rlotte .
He is a pa s t preside n! ot t he Gen e ral Anthro pa logy Division a l thc America n Anth ropological
Asso ciation a nd wa s tb e r eci pient 01t be AAA/M ayfield Award tor Excellencein Undergra duat e
Tea ch ing. He is t he a ut h o r 01Why f Aro Not a Scientist: Anthropology and Modern Knowfedge
120091: Wha t Ir Means to B e 98% Chimpan7ee: Apes, Peopfe. and Their Genes 120021 . whic h won
the 2003 w. w. Howcl ls P rize fr om the Biological Ant hr op otoqv Se ction 01 the Ame rica n
Anthropol oqice : Ass octe t lon and the 2009 J. 1. St a tey Pr ize frorn the Sc hool Ior Advance d
Rese arch: a nd Human Biodiversiry: Genes. Rece. an d Hisrory 119% 1. JONATHAN MARKS

co vu DU IG'" l: d~rdo Nemelh 1 COVE.. ''''' PHI( lohuntntock

ISBN 978-0 -19-515703- 1

XFO RD
lJ NI VERS ITY P R ES S

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OXFO RD
\ ':NIV ER SITY f' R E S5
 The Alternative
Introduction to
Biological Anthropology
-r
JNATHA N MARKS
The University of Nor th Carolina at Charlotte

New York Oxford

O XF OR D U NI VER SIT Y PRE SS
2011
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Libr ar y of Congress Catalogtng-In-Publcat on Data

Mack.s, Jona than (Jonath an M.), 1955-
T he alte rn ative introd uction to bol ogca l an throp ology / [on athan Marks.
p. cm.
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 CON TENTS

1'-'

P REF ACE XV

Chapter 1 What Is Anthropology, What Is Biological

Anthropology, and Should 1 Be Getting
Science Credit for This? (On the Philosophy
of Science) 1
Theme 1
What Is Anthropology? 1
The Subfields of Anthropology 4
The Antheopology of Science 5
The Normative View of Science: Scent c Method 7
The Social Matrix of Scence 11
Relativizing Science 12
The Origins of Anthropol ogy 13
The Origins of Physical Anthropology 14
Biological Anthro pology Today 16
References and Further Reading 18

Chapter 2 Where Did Our Scientific Ideas about Ourselves

Come From? (On the HistoryofScience) 20
Theme 20
The Beginnin gs of a New View of Nature 20
The Scientific Revolution 21
The Decline of Degeneration 23
The Analomy of a "Pygme" 24
Biblical Fallibility, or al Least incompleteness 25
Monogenism 26
Cause and Effect 27

,,;;
viii C O NT EN T5 Contents x

The Great Chain of Being 28 Pleiotropy 69

Buffon's Object ion to the Nested Hierarchy 30 Im printing 70
Extinction 31 Extra -nuclear Inheritance 71
Natural Theology 33 The Molecular Genomic Basis of Hered ity 71
Uniformitarian Geolog y 34 The Alpha-Globin Gene Cluster 74
Adam's World 35 Mutation 75
Human Evolution 36 Meanings of the Gene and Genetics 76
Referen ces.and Furt her Reading 37 References and Fur ther Reading 78

Chapte r 3 Can You Tell If You Are a Darwinist? Capter 5 Are We Here ? If So, Why? (On Issues
(On Theories of Evolution) 39 of Micro evolutio n) 80
Theme 39 Theme 80
Darwin's Argument 41 Do Things Exist for a Reason ? 80
Where Peop!e Fit In 42 Princi pal Abstraction : The Gene Pool 81
Th e Sacrifice 44 Gene Flow 82
Implication s for Pattem 45 lnbrceding 82
Implications for Speces 45 Natural Selection 83
Implications for Biological History 47 Genetic Drift 84
Implications for Relating Hum ans to Other Animals 48 Sickle CeU 86
Phylogeny: The Core of Darwi nism 49 Why 15 th e Gene Pool the Way It Is? 88
Other Darwinisms 50 Adaptation or Found er Effect? 90
Social Darwinism 50 Anothe r Point Illustrated by Sickle CeU
Neo-Darwinism 51 and Phenylketonu ria 92
The "Synthetie Th eor y" 52 Sickle CeU, Tey-Sachs, and Genetie Screening 93
Evolution at th e Molecular Level 53 Kinship as a Biocultural Cons tructlon 94
Pun ctu ated Equillbr ia 54 Genc tc Histor y and the Diversity Project 97
Sociobiology 55 Wh o Owns the Body 98
Universal Dar winism 57 References and Furthcr Read ng 99
Atheisti c Darwinism 57
References and Further Readin g 59 Capter 6 Build ing Better Monkeys, or at Least Different
Ones (On 5ystematics) 101
Chap ler 4 Why Do I Look Like th e Cable Guy, Daddy? Theme 101
(On Issue s ofHuman Heredi ty) 61 Speciation 101
Theme 61 Speclftc Mate Recognition Systems 102
The Theory of Partieu!ate Inh eritance: Mende l's Laws 64 Gene tic Systems Producing Incompatibility 103
Ten Non -Mendelian Laws 65 Species as Ind ividu als 106
Th e Chromoso me Theo ry 65 Lcvels and Rates of Evolution 107
Linkage 66 Developrnen tal Genetics 108
Crossing-Over 66 Allometrie Growth 110
Polygenic Inheritance 66 Extinctio n 112
Environmental Influ ence on Phenotypes 67 Classification 113
Unit Char acters 68 Systematics and Phylogeny 114
Properties of Heterozygotes 69 Classiea! and Cladistic Taxonomy 116
 x CNT ENTS Con tents x

Phylogenet ies 117 The Most Fundamental Human Adapt ation:

Limita tions of the Phylogenetie Meth od 119 Bipedalism 164
References and Furt her Reading 120 Why Be Bipedal? 165
The Second Fund amental Hum an Adaptation:
Chap ter 7 Is That an Ape in Your Genes, or Are You Iust The Teeth 167
Glad to See Me? (On the Place ofHumans in Why Reduce the Canines? 168
The Third Fun damental Human Adaptation: The Brain 169
the Natural arder) 121
Why Be Big Brained? 170
Theme 121
Social and Life-History Novelties 171
Primate Classifcarlon 122
PhysiologicaI and Sexual Novelties 173
Proble ms ofUniformitarian ism 124
What Does It Take to Make a Scenario of Human
Gene tic and Anatomical Data 125
Evolution Valuable? 174
The Mamm als 125
Cultural Evolution 175
Our Place in Primate Systcmatcs 127
References and Further Reading 176
The Living Apes 128
The Trichotomy 133
Cladism, Reductionism, and th e Rise of the Homini ns 135 Chapter 10 If History Is Humanities, and Evolution Is
What Does lt Mean to Be 98% Gen etically Scence, What Is Paleoanthropology? (On the
Chimpanzee? 138 ' Assumptions of a Diachronic Science) 178
Reference s and Further Reading 139 Theme 178
Scientific Inferences Across Time 178
Chapter 8 Apes Run Around Naked, Live in Trees, and Fling Skeletal Biology 179
The ir Poo. Do You? (On th e Relevance of Apes Sexual Dimorphi sm 179
Ontogeny 180
to Understanding Humans) 141
Geograph ic Variatio n 180
Them e 141
Paleopathology 181
What Primates Can and Can't Tell Us 141
Sources ofMorphological Variation 181
Prima te Fieldwork 143
Lumping and Splitting 184
Prim ates in Group s 145
Fossilization 185
Social Behavior and Ecology 146
Other Considerations 186
Food 149
Rights and Responsibilities in Paleoanthropology 189
Sexual Activity and Parent hood 151
Kind s of Evidence 190
Mod els for Human Evolution 152
Superposition and Assocaton 190
Baboons in th e Sixties, Chimps in the Nineties 155
Dating 191
Looking EIsewhe re for Clues about Hum an Evolution 156
Doing the Best We Can with LoS! Data 191
The Ape Mind 157
Making Sense of Hum an Ancestry 194
Culture 158
Classifying the Living Apes and Fossil Ancestors 195
Conservation 159
References and Further Reading 197
Referenc es and Further Rcadi ng 160

Chap ter 9 Being and Becoming (On th e Relevance of Chapter II The Dental and the Mental (On Making Sense of
Humans to Understanding Hurnans) 162 the Early Diversification of the Human
Theme 162 Lineage) 199
Human Nature 162 Theme 199
 xii CONTENT 5 Contents xiii

The Shado w of Piltd own Man 199 The Anthropology of Science 263
A Hom inid Origin 201 Bioethics 265
Discovery of the Australopltheclnes 20 2 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act
Australopithecus: Basal Bipeds 203 (NAGPRA): Who O wns the Bones! 267
Paranthropus- The Dental Adaptation 206 Origin Myths, Scentfc and Otherwise 270
Early Horno: The Ment al Adaptation 208 Biocultural Studcs, or Cyborg Anthropology 272
The Beginning of Cultural Evolution 211 Referen ces and Furthe r Readlng 274
References and Further Reading 2 13
I NDEX 277
Chapter 12 What to Do When Confronted by a Neandertal
(On Continuity and Discontnuty) 215
Theme 215
The Human Lineage 219
The Mental and Social Life of Horno erectus 221
Horno sapiens, the Wise Species 22 2
Neander tal Life 223 .
Anat omicaJly Modero People 225
The Emergence of Art 228
The Political Nature of Ancestry 230
Testing Paleontologic al Models Gene ticaJly 231
References and Further Reading 233

Chap ter 13 Iust How Different Is Different? (On Race) 236

Theme 236
Race 236
Patter ns of Contemporary Huma n Variation 239
Why Do We See Reces! 242
Race as a Biocultural Category 245
Asking Scientific Que stions about Human D iversity 247
Race Is to Ethnicity as Sex Is to Gender, But Nor Quite 249
Wh at Is Innate 250
Patte rns of Huma n Genet ic and Behavioral Variation 252
Referenccs and Purther Readin g 254

Chapter 14 Nature/Culture, or How Science Manages

to Give Little Answers to Big Questions
(On the Non-reductive Core of
Anthropology) 256
Theme 256
Adaptability and th e Human Cond ition 256
Folk Theories of Heredit y 259
The State of th e Species 261
 PREFACE

This book is intended for courses in biologicaI anthropology.

It is hard to write a textbook, and my hat goes off to a1l those who have suc-
eessfully published them. But the modero Darwinian market places severe con-
straints on what textbooks can even attempt, much less accomplish. In the oId days
a textbook in this freid expressed the personality and style of the author. Three
dassic examples are Earnest Hooron's Up fro m the Ape (1931 and 1946), Ashley
Monlagu's tntroduct on to Physical Anthropology (1945), and Iohn Buett ner-
Ianuschs Origins01 Man (1966). (The fact that the author of the last of these died
in jail after trying to murder sorne of his former colleagues, as well as the judge
who had convieted him of manufacturing ilIegal drugs in his laboratory a few
years earler; only adds to the mystique of the oIclen days.) .
Today's textbooks have to strive for market share, which selects to sorne
unfortunate extent for blandness. It also selects for normativity and for the per-
petuation of mythologies. By normativity.1mean the tendency not to deviate from
a moldothat is to say, from the way things are supposed to be. By mythologles, 1
mean a set of narratives that explains who we are, where we come from, and where
we fit in.
These mythologies inelude that biological anthropology is unambiguously a
science (actually in many universities it is categorized dfferently, as "just" a social
science, and the office next door may house a real-life humanist); that Charles
Darwin and Gregor Mendel are its founding founders (actuaUy Thomas Huxley
and AJeSHrdlka had far more lo do with it): that we are geneticaUy apes (actually
we are genetically humans): and many others.

AP PROAC H
1wrole th is book lo present a framework for thinkng about biological anthropol-
ogy as it is, for the most part, not presented in contemporary textbooks: princi-
paUy, as a part of anthropology, and in particular, a part of anthropology that
xv l PR E FACE
bilds a bridge to biology, from which we can see aspects of hum an biology that
may not be visible from too close a vantage point. Like ethnographers, we want to
be able to experience hu man biolcgy as a participant, but also to understand it as
an observer. My purpose s to explore, and to sorne extent to centralize , anthro po-
logcal issues in the study of our more naturaltstc aspects. To that end, I do no t fee!
as tho ugh 1need to explain things like "mitosis" and "our friend, the fmur" which
are capably handled in any normative textbook ofbiological anthropology.
Instcad, I will focus on more anthropological areas: how we make sense of
data about our origins, where our rnodern ideas come frorn, our inability to sepa-
rate natural facts from cultural facts and values as we try to understand oursclves,
and the so cial and political aspects of science as a culturally slruated mental activ-
ity. This book is stru ctured as a set ofpedagogically inflected essays amplifying
issues and , hopefuUy, challenging students to think bot h critically and anth ropo-
loglcally, The chapters correspond to those in any standard biological anth ropol-
ogy textbook. Each essay draws on and complements-but does not reconstitute,
except for the sake of clarity-the data and ideas presented in those standard text-
books.
WHY THI S BOOK?
It's dlfferent, and less straitlaced than othe r modern presentations. It's
mo stly just words , but carefully chosen words. In certain places t's even-
dare I say it?-funny. It doesn't have color pictures. And that's one reason
It's priced lower tha n othe r introdu ctory material.
Thi s book complements tradition al textboo ks in biological anth ropology.
I've writte n thi s boo k from a perspective that takes their merits for grante d:
explanations of basic biological concepts, gIossy phot os, end-of-chapter
questions. and the like. The assets of the present boo k will He elsewhere,
especially in br inging historical and philosophical issues into the picture.
It gives new slants on familiar ideas. It does not simply mirror what is in the
basic textbook s bu t offers a new spn, fostering critical th inking. Ever ybody
is into critical thinki ng these days, but t's always about questioning "othcr"
ideas , not the ones in the book. This book tries to explore how to think
criticalIy about its own ideas. In anthropology, thi s s k.nown as "reflexvty"
To help readers get star ted, theme stat ements at the beginning of each chap-
ter introduce the breadth of informa tion covered.
Pur ther, this book explores connec tions between biological and general
anthropology. For example, the most funda mental intellectual chor e Is to
situate ourselves within a natural order. But there are many ways of order-
ing nature. We cou Id juxtapose hair y animals (bears and giraffes) against
feathered ani mals (swans and cassowaries). Alternatively, we could juxta-
pose land-dwellers (lions and snakes) agetnst f1yi ng things (bats and mos-
qu itoes). Or striped animals (tgers and b.uu blebees) against drab animals
Prcface xvl
(llamas and dolph ins). Or yummy (duck and lamb) versus yucky (cock-
roaches and dogs). We will be more interested in the process that yields the
first diehotomy. the majar adaptations in the history of life. But ts impor-
tant to recognize that that is an arbitrary choice. one that interests us scien-
tifically, not aesthetically or gastronomicalIy.
The discussions offer integratlon of topics, coherent narratives, and salient
examples. The focus here s 00 the evolution of hum ans as natur al/cultural
beings. Thal involves both examinin g the primate context of human evolu-
tion and the ecological un iqueness of our species. 1 wrote it from the per-
spective of someone who has sat 00 the editorial boards of the Iournal 01
Human Evotution, the Yearbook of Physical Anthropology, the International
Ioumol of Primatology. and the ioumal of the Royal Anthropological Insti-
tute. Like anybody. I have gaps in my kn owledge; on the oth er hand, a lot of
people thin k 1 know what I'm talking about.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book owes debts to many people, th rough its various incarnatlons and nick-
names, including (but not Hmted lo) More Biological Anthropology. Biological
Anthropology and the Chamber of Secrets. and The Un-textbook.
Thanks first off to Jan Beatty, who conceived this project and saw it through
its phases of development . Lauren Mine and the staff at Oxford University Press
were also great to work with.
Special thanksto Karen Strier, Susan McCombie, and my colleagues at UNCC,
who have charitably allowed me to bounce a wide gamut of ideas off them .
1 would also like lo thank the following reviewers: Libby Cowgill, University
of Missouri ; Beth Erhart, Texas State University; Arny Hirshman, West Virginia
University ; [ohn Krigbaum, University of Florida; Debra Martin, University of
Nevada-Las Vegas: Frances Purifo y; University of Louisville; Karen Rosen berg,
University of De!aware; Mary Russell, Pierce College: Wenda Trevathan, New
Mxico State University; and Frank Williams, Georg ia State University.
And flnally, 1 thank Peta Ann Katz and Abby Marks, who had my last two
books dedicated to them and may think this is a demotion, but it sn't.
 The Alternative
Introduction to
Biological Anthropology
r
 C H AP T ER 1

What Is Anthropology, What Is

Biological Anthropology, and Should 1
Be Getting Science Credit for This?
(On the Philosophy of Science)
THEME
Biological anthropology breaks clown the bound aries of traditional academic
provi nces, being both a scien tific and a hum anistic endeavor. At sorne universities,
biological anthropology is considered satisfactory fulfillment for a "science"
requirement: at othe rs, it is notoIts orig in is distinet from that of evolu ronary bol-
ogy because biological anthropo logy studies the meanin g of specificalIy human
differences and origins.

WHAT IS ANT H ROP OLO GY1

Anthropology is the scho larly field of inquiry th at studies hwnans 3 5 grou p mern -
bers. Other fieids study hum ans as individuals (psychology and physiology. for
example), but the focus of anthropology is on clusters of people - how they differ
in form and behavor from other clusters of people-and how the largest cluster of
people, the human species tself relates to other species.
By "scholariy" I mean that it follows a tradition of rigorous argume nto logc,
high standards offirst-hand evidence, and an understanding and appreciation of
the errors earlier genera tions of students eornmitted in their stud ies of the subjeet.
It is onIy by confronting those errors that present generations ean come to more
eomprehensive and aeeurate understan din gs of the subject.
In studying humans as group membe rs, anthropology is a field of mediation.
That is, it takes two entities that look like opposites and finds the areas of connee-
tion between them. One obvious area of mediation is "individual" versus "group
member" A person is both at the same time. Any person develops from a single
egg. eontaining a gcnettc prog ram distinet from that a11 oth er people, exeept an
iden tical twin. On the other hand , th at persone genetic program is far mo re simi-
lar to that of a chimpa nzee than to that of a horse- beeause they are part of the
hu man species, not a part of the zebra speces.
 2 CH APT E R 1 W HAT IS AN T H ROPOLOGY?
Moreover, that distinct genetic pr ogram within the specfc hu man egg will
develop into a pcrson in a define d context-a context of biology (such as maternal
environment, nu triti on , hormones, and drugs ), socicty (the other people already
in the world , from the immediate family to ones peer groups), and history (the
no nbclogcal thi ngs inherited from ancestors such as rnon ey, ahorne, and a lan-
guage). Additi onally, there exists th e suite of experie nces ltved as an individual,
filtered and rendered mea ningful th rough ones own personal history (praise,
abus e, attentlon, abandonment, accidents, relocation).
With 50 many variables, it is a daunting task to try and explain why any spe-
cific person does any specflc thn g at any speciflc time . In fact, that is probably a
task for astrolo gers. no t scholars.
What we can do, however, is derive sorne gene ralization s abo ut the behavior
ofgroups of ind ividuals and contrast them with oth ers.
Such generalizatons, of course, must be based on the extensive careful obser-
vatlons and analyses of what people in different places at different tim es actually
do--such studies comprise ethnography. the firsthand study of a hum an group in
a specifc place and situatio n.
Ethnography is pa rtic ularly valuable in providing us with the data we nced to
make relable statements about the breadt h of the human experience. How can we
taIk sensibly about "what it mea ns to be human;' for example, f our only frame of
reference is what it means to be human in one particular socicty, un de r une par-
ticular set of circu mstan ces, al one specific point in time?
Most ethnography, con sequently, has involved studying dverse ru ral, no n-
Euro -American peoples. Over the course of the last few cen turi es, these societies
have come under thc poltcal and economi c domination of other, more po werful
soctettesc- a set of relationship s known as colonialismo Th us, while the exotic peo-
pIes of Polynesia or Tibet or central Africa have compr ised the classical site of
ethnography, it has also made anthropology a media tor in the complex relation-
ships between indigenous peoples and colonial powers.
Anth ropo logy assumed thi s role by demon st rating a mediating role between
the exotic and the mundaneoEarly twentieth- centur y anthropologists in the field
showe d that not only are lives and daily conce rns of the people "out there" very
mu ch like your own daily lfe and concerns (resolvng dispu tes among frlend s,
helping friends against enernes, taking care of a family, deriving the means of
sustenanee, having sex, cop ing with death , and just getting th rough the day), but
conversely, the con cerns and aetion s that you take for granted in your daily life can
seem arbit rary and bizarre when Iooked at from a distance. Eating th ree meals a
day; blcssing someone who has just sneezed. how you dress; read ing this English -
language page pr inted in Roman letters rath er than in cuneiform, picto grams, or
hieroglyphs; adopting a husband's family name, how you spend your day- these
are not features of human life but specifically of a human life lived here and now,
and they might have easily been diffcrent . And they eould be different.
This medi ation-c-standing betw een opp ostes and sbowing how they are
con nected- is a fund amental part of anthropology. By looking at the hist orica l
What Is Anthropology? 3
origins of particular behaviors and peoples, an thropology mediates the past and
the presentolt looks at not only where we have come from, but where other peo pIes
have come from, and where we as a species have come from.
lo this sense, anthro pology also mediates the concept of human and animal.
We are, en the one hand , nonphotosynth esizing, multicellular tife-animal; and .
on the other hand , we are a unique forro of life that radically tr ansforms its envi-
ronrnent and creates its own means by which to survive. We are both governe d by
the needs and instincts of other species- to survive, eat, breathe, and reproduce,
among many other things- and yet we are also governed by laws our ancestors
made up. which regulate what we can and cannot do as we try to survve and
reproduce. We also season our food in locally specific ways that have negligible
nutritional value and deliberately inh ale substances other than air, such as the
burn ing residue of certain dried leaves, for reason s othe r than breathing. We are
both like other animals and yet different from other animals .
The c1assic juxtapositon of animalne ss and nonanimalness, me1ded into
the human and media ted in the study of anthropo logy, is ofte n represent ed as
a dichotomy of nature versus culture. "Nature" here would mean the biological
core or essence of the human animal; wh ile "culture" would refer to those
institutions th at are "man-ma de" or in sorne sense artificial- not part of ou r
genetic endowment but of our social endowment. That dic hotomy is a classi-
eally false one.
Ano ther imp ortant site of anthropologicaI mediation is der ved from the
relations of colonial and indige no us peoples as menti on ed previousl y. AH
peoples have knowledg e abo ut the wor ld, which serves not on ly to help them
explot the natural resources avallable but also to orient them and tell them n ght
from wro ng. Science, which emerged in eighteenth-c entury Europe, is the par-
I
,
ticular for ro of knowledge of the world used and valued in modern society.
It coexists with other form s of knowledge -such as religion, nsp ration, and
superstition-but is the kn owledge most funda ment ally identified with mod ern
society.
And yet, other people s have kn owledge th at is useful, effectve, and nsght-
fuI. They kno w what is dangerou s in their own environment; they know how
to survive and even thr ive where you or 1would be virtuaHyhelpl ess. They kno w
the tid es, the approachi ng weather, what to plant and when to plant it; and the y
also kn ow the spirit world, where they carne from , and where they're going after
they die.
Here, of course, traditional oc folk kno wledge may often com e into confl ict
with scientific or tech nical kno wledge. Anthropology also works to mediate these
two realms. Often this antagonism is played out as a clash of science versus "belef .
systems," or in university cultures, as a ,conflict between science (like physics and
geology) and hu manities (like literature and histor y). Sometimes anthropology is
part of a midd le ground, "social scence"- not quite scence but noi quite arts or
humanities either.
In fact, anthro pology par takes ofboth.
 4 C HAP T ER 1 W HAT 15 ANTH ROPO LO GY ?
THE SU BFI ELDS OF A NT H RO P O LOGY
Anthropology is an antired uctive or holistic study of the hum an species. lts meth-
ods range from the scientfi c to the literary: humans are both physical and mental
beings: and so to study the ir groups rigorously and comprehenslvely, we are
bl gcd to take an eclectic approach to anthropological data and research. Anthro-
pological research ranges from comparative anatomy and genomics (which shed
ligh t on the ways in which human populations differ from one ano ther, how the
human species differs from its relatves and ancestors, and how a human cell df-
fers from a gorilla eell) lo the analysis of poetry, song, and jokes (which shed light
0 0 ho w groups oEpeople understand themselves in relation to other groups and in
varyi ng situations of economic or political nequalty),
Biological anthropol ogy represcnts the most scientific end of the field,
devoted to studying the biological hstory, evolutionary relattonships, and adap-
tive diversity that characterize the hum an speces. The field originaHy carne to be
called "physical" anthropology in the nineteenth cent ury, to emphasize the fact
that Its subject was th e physical remains oE people-generally their bones and
brains- and to contrast with the mental aspects ofhuman life tha t were becoming
the dornain of "cultural" anthropologists. In the twentieth centu ry. however, it
grad ually became d ear that there were other things to study that fell with in the
scope of physical anthropology without beng strictly "physicaI" in the sense that
bones are-notably,genes an d the behavior of nonh uman primates. Consequently,
we eommonly refer lo the field as "bological anthropology" although the phrase
"physical anthropology" rema ins in use.
Biological anthropoJogy is regarded as one of four intellcctual subfields in
anth ropolo gy. The "four-feld" division of anthropology developed in the United
States in the nineteenth century, by early anthropologists from the Smithson ian
Institut ion interested in studying Native Ame rican s, who had been finally "pac-
fled" th rough a combination of geno cide and assimilation. No longer a threat to
American expansion, they often lived in poor solated ru ral communities and yet
were directly descended from the original inhabitants of the Ame rican continent.
The 'four-feld" approach began as a system of systematically and comprehen-
sively studying indigeno us people. In this case, it involved white scientists gong out
to study the bod ies and bones of Indians, the original occupan ts of the land; their
ancient art and architecture; their custorns: and their languages. in other words-
physical anth ropology, archaeology, cultural anthropology; and linguistics.
In other cou ntries, with dfferen t colonial and political histories, anthropol-
ogy developed different ly. In England, arehaeo logy beeame mor e closely alJied
with ar t history, physical anthropology with human biology, and cultural anthro-
pology with the study of social systems. In France, "anthropology" carne to mean
physical anthropology, and "soc ology" carne to me an cultural anthropology.
To the extent that the "four-fieId" approach ts now interna tional, it is derived
from the American mod el, Th at model, however, arose as a nineteenth-centu ry form
of "comprehensive othering"-studying powerless, indigenous people different from
The Anthropology of Science 5
yourself. As anth ropology has matured beyond that original scope. its approach
has matured as well. Anthropology now studies all peopIes, not just powerless
indigenou s ones, and anthropological projects rarely cover mor e than one sub-
fleld; the "four-Ield approach" is institutionalized but is no Ionger embod ied in
the research of any single anthropologist.
THE ANTHRO P O LO GY OF SCI EN CE
Modern anthropoIogy not only studes belief systems and practices of exotic peo-
ples but those of ourselves as well. The act of turning the anthropological gaze
inwards is called rejlexivity. Classically, it serves to make the acts and thoughts of
"modern" peop Ie scem exotic-and works like these range feom Montesquieu's
fictional Persian Letters in the eghtecntb centur y (the French as seen through the
eyes of a visitar from Persia), thro ugh Horace Mner's classic study of the "Naci-
rema" (spell it backwards for the secret message), to modern works such as Rayna
Rapps cthnography of genetic counselng, George Gmelch's ethnography of base-
ball, and Philippe Bourgos' ethnography of dru g dealers.
Sclence, of course, constitutes a fund amental system of beliefs and pra ctices
in mod ero life and has itself come under the reflexve anthropologicaI gaze. Sorne
people reject sclence, others embrace t, and many choose pieces of science to
accept or reject. Thc anthropology of science s a growing area of study that seeks
to stand between scicnce and culture and to analyze science as anthropologists
explore other beliefsystems.
Science deals with facts about the world. But where do facts come from! How
do ideas become facts? Standard training in science raeely raises such questions.
After all, if science is just "readng what's out th ere in nat ure,' it can't be wrong nor
have its premlses or actions called into question. :
And yet science is cornmonly wrong. Genetics books of the 19405 routinel y
said tha t human eells have 48 ehromosomes (they only have 46). Scientific boo ks
also commonly said that hu mans diverged from the ape lineage in the early Olgo-
cene (lt was in the late Miocene). Indeed in recent years, there bave been furious
adversarial battles about the scientific evidence for breast implants as a health risk,
DNA fingerprinting as a too l for criminal pro secution, and th e value and status
of stem cel1s in medic al research . If science has the property of be ing self-
cor recti ng-which it does-th en it stands to reason that there is something to
correct, namely, alternati ve wrong scientific hypotheses.
It is consequently useful to distinguish among three parts of the scentfic .
subject. Ontologyis about being-about the state of existence, or ofwhat "really s"
But that is not really the domain of science. Science Is about epistemology-what
can be k.nown, and how we can k.now it.
Co nsider this quest on: How many angels are in the room n ght now!
We'll even simplify it and make it multipIe-choice: (a) three or fewer angels;
(b) four or more angels: (e) non e al aIl.
 6 CH A PTE R 1 WHAT 15 A NT I-IRO PO LO G Y ?
Logically, one of tho se answers must be righ t. Th ere is an answer to the ques-
tion. But there is no way for scien ce to find it because angels are not material
enti ties and are not am enable to sclentlfic de teetion and analvsis.
So whatever th e an swer may be, it cannot be revealed 'by scien tific means.
Thus, scen ce is not so much abou t "realty" or what there "Is, as t is about what
we can kn ow. Science is fun dam entalIy about the kin ds of questio ns one can mean-
ingfulIy ask, th e kin ds of dat a on e can collect, and th e kin ds of answer s one can
gen erate. In other words. it is abou t epistemology.
. ~h i~ dist~nction between ont ology and epist emology- being an d kn owing-
l~ ba~lc tn ph ilosop hy but n ot widely considered in science. Not m aking the dis-
tnc ton serves to promote the idea that scien ce is simply a con tinuous revelation
of what is true and real, rather than being a series of methods and gudc hncs. lim-
ited by available ideas and techn ologies.
No t only is th ere a d istin ction to be ma de between what is real and what we
can know about it, the rc is also th e fun dam ental probl em of ho w we comm unicate
it to one ano th cr: how we talk, and write, an d think ab out it. We learn that there is
~ "gene tic code"-in other w~rds, that th ere is something like a langu age ope rating
In the cell. But thi s is simply a metaph or devi sed in 1944 by the biophysicist Erwin
~chr~dinger; . ther~ i~ no cryptograph y going on between two commu nicat ing.
mtelhgent bemgs inside the cell. Genetics is /ike a code in sorne ways-but is no t
itsel: ~ codeoThis me taphor has been im men sely power ful an d helpful in concep-
tualizing th e way th e ceUworks, but it is abo ut what th e cell is like, not what the ceU
is. Thi s is semiotics, the domain of me anngs, and ano ther fundamental aspeet of
scientiflc advanee.
We en coun ter useful m ctaph ors in all pa rts of sciencc-"black holes" in astro-
phys cs, "bo nds'' in chem istr y, th e "adaptive landscape" in biology. It is important,
h owever, to acknowledge rhar these are aids in conc ep tualizing and com rnun icat-
ing about reality, no t descrip tions of it. Thcy are no less valuable, bu r they are un its
of language an d thcught, not of extern al na ture.
O ntology. epsremology, an d semiotics are all p arts ofhow knowIedge is con -
strueted. First, there is sorne relationship between what is really out there and what
scienee says about it- but that relationship is never ob vious or straightforward.
Every new discove ry; after all, presupposes a prior state of scient ifie falsehood,
which is supplan ted by the very discovery. Second, there are ways of diseerning
aspec ts oft he wor ld, wh ich are boun ded by the available instrumen ts and conc ep-
tual models. Imagine tr ying to convince a skeptic about cells without th e aid of
microscopy, or ra dioactive decay without calculus. An d th rd, we rnake scnse of
~,he w~r1d sci. ntificalIy th ro ugh the introduetion and use of key metapho rs-
7
genetc code as n oted aboye, or " 'homm e machne" or "natural selecton," or
even "roan the hu nter, "Each of these helps us to see part s of the world in construc-
tive scientifie ways and to frame new questions abo ut how it works.
, Finally, there is a proeess by wh ich ideas become facts. Science is an occupa-
ho n. and as such. its practiti on ers face the stresses of life in any oth er job: pro mo-
tions, raises, gett ing the esteem of one's superiors, networki ng, and prot ccting
The Normatrve ViewofSdence : Scentfic Method 7
oncs "turf" Is it any wcnde r, then, that scientists often promote ~heir ~wn ideas. or
those of th eir friends, or of their professors? As a resultosornen mes Ideas tha~ are
wrong are nevc rtheless maint ained for years afte r they have been concluslve~y
refuted (for example, that genes are composed of protein rathe r than of nuclc c
acid, or that races differ in their inn ate intellectual capacites); and ideas that are
right sometmes hav e rernarkablc difficulty gett ing accep ted (for example , Men-
del's work on peas; oc th at Australopithecus is a human anccstor). . . .
Iust how thi s occurs is often the subject uf careful work by hi storlan s. But t
does pu t the lle to the nafve view tha t scien ce is simply an upw~rd.m~rch to tr uth.
It's a ma rch to the truth, but the tru th is a negc tiation at any po mt m time be tween
"realtty" and "perception," and that m arch is commonly sideways or backwards.
THE NORMATIVE VIEW OF SCIENCE:
SCIENTIFIC METHOO
Th ere is n o single methcd by which sccnce works, to the exc1usion of othe r modes
of th ou ght. No r is science just "glor ified com mon sen se," as sorne have suggcsted.
Rath er science is a set of methods for deriving k.nowledge abo ut th e unknown,
begnn ng with th e formulation of an answe rable qu estion, ~nd proceeding by par-
ing down the roanyanswers that might be tr ue, to the relatively few th at pr~bably
are true . The re are many kind s of science, but it is useful to look first at the tdeal-
ized or normative idea of what science is.
The scientific process begins with th e formulation of a problem th at needs an
answer and that is answerable. The choi ce of a prob lem to tackle refute s on e of the
old est myths abou t scien ce-that it takes place with a ful~y ~pe~ mind, free of
pre con ceptions . Sirnply choosing a qu estion implies a preexstng Judgme~t about
what is int eresting and mp ortant, and is thereby worthy of study. A que ston th~t
is answe rable is one for which a c1ass of data can be rigorously collected to settIe t.
No tice tha t thi s cr iterion excludes stu dies of th e supern atural wor ld, wh ich are no t
ame nable to rigorous data collection. .
The articulation of the problem to be studied is known as an hypothesis: a
statement about the world that rnay or may not b e true, but which can be ma tched
agai nst sorne information in th e real world to help u~ decid~. Hypo theses th at do
not h ave this property of testability- for wh ieh the re 15 n othing yo~ ca~ do.to hel~
settle the problem-are rnetaphysical and outside th e dorna in of scientific nvesti-
gaton. The example we used earlier-How many angels are in the room? ~wo~ld
be such a qu eston. not amenable to scientific analysis . What co~nts as a scientific
question at one time rnay not count at ano ther- after all, asking abo ut X-rays
wouId h ave made no sense in the mid-seventeenth century. .
The formulat ion of a testable hypoth esis is .t h e creative element in science.
Having formulated such an hypo the sis. we invok e the empir~cal p~r~ of scienc~
the coHection of data tha t bear on the hypothesis . O nce agam . thIS IS not carned
out in an intellcctual vacuum: we have made prior judg ments abo ut which kinds
of information are relevant or notoTh ere is no inn ocent observation. .
 The NormativeViewof Science Sdentific Method 9
8 CHAPT ER 1 W HAT IS .A NT HROPOLOGY?
h worked One could still ask,"What
.In a famou s example, Charles Darwin collected bird s while in the Galapagos simply that we now understood how t . e sys~em t?" _ nd still end up with a Divine
' ?" "Why does graVlty eX1S . a
Islands, and upon his return to London, he gave the colleetion to a d istinguished causes gravlty. or f _ ha s nevertheless d isplaced the action of God
ornithologist na med Iohn Gould for study. Gould , interested in th e patte rn s of answer-~ut thed~d~mcef th:cpl~yn~i:al world and relegated Him to setting up the
vari ation in the beaks and colors of the birds, asked Darwin whi ch island he had frorn the im me racres o
collected each speci men from. Darwin, however, did not know for cert ain. Why? rules by which th e unversc wo.rks. . f mulated an answer to the quest ion
Because as a youn g bologst educ ated at Cam bridge in the creationist ideas of the In a precisely similar asnon, Darwn or . d i ' " - and his
. b d pted to ther surroun mgs:
1820s. th e assumption was th at God had placed ereatures in their appropriate set- "How do different specres come to e a a lif ti on of individuals with certain
ttngs, and the islands in an areh ipelago would simply have the same creatures. answer was natural seleco n. the greater pro 1 era l. h' Ii .
Darwin had not recorded which island each bird had come from, beeause he did eharacteristics. Darwin famously ended his work with t IS me. . .
not thn k it was important! This would precipitate his interest in biogeography- . . . f hfe with its several powers, having been on gi-
Thcre is grandeur m this V1CW o . ' . d that whilstthis planet has gone
the relationship between life and place- that would ultim ately lead to his theory of nallybreathed int~ a fewforms;;~:t:fo~:~an , fron: so simple a beginning end-
evolution by natu ral selection. cyeling on according to the fixe
-less forms most beautiful and most won er
fu?
~ havcbeen and are bemg, evolved.
.
The deci sion abo ut whic h data to colleet or record, then, is cru cial to the sci-
entific enterprise. It provi des the link to the "real world" that science trie s to study. in athe ism Darwin added th ree
But to the aceusation that he was . e.spo~,Sl ghavin b:en originally breathed
word s to that sentence in the seco~d editioru .; His pur ; ose was te try to follow in
Data can be eith er in the form of observation (repo rt ing) or experirnentation
(a controlled activity). In eith er case, th e elimination of extrancous infor mation-
by th e Creator into a few forros or mt~ one. havc a hand in bio iogy, but if so, the
eont rol-is crucial to the enterprise, ensuring th at the data are in fact relevant to
Newton's foots teps: Go d may wcll ~X1S~.~~ tly adap ted was an understandable
the question at hand. The collection of data cannot be hapha zard, b ut must be
mechani sm He used to rnake spectes 1 .e ren not interested in the origin of lfe,
earthly process of natu ral s~lect~on. ~:~;i~~ : tSh th e existence of God , but merely
done carefully an d rigorously.
Thu s, for example, there are many old stud ies that have argued that popula-
tion s ofblacks and whites in Amc rica have different average IQs. From thi s, sorne and his thcory wasndobt deSlg1ne dto natural understandable forces. Slightly later,
to delimit what cou e exp am e by '
investigato rs have d aim ed that whites are simply innately sm arter th an blacks. interestingly. he wrote to a friend o
Others, however, recognizi ng th at whites and blacks in America lead very d ffer- li .. d used the Pentateuchal
1have long regretted that 1trucklcd to pub"e opmlO;::n sorne wholly unknown
ent lives, insist th at you can not simply comp are average IQs of different caces. but
only average IQs of wh ites and blacks fra m the same reas, with similar ncornes, term of creation, by which 1 r~an.y mcant ap~ea;;he o~gin of life; one rnght as
process. lt is mere rubblsh, thnkng at presen o
and similar family histori es. And once you control for these variable s. you find well th nk of theorigin of matter. . .
that the difference in average IQ disapp ears-which suggests it was not measuring . b h . . of rnatter or abo ut th e ongln ofhfe; tt
t
in nate differences in intellectual ability, but differences in the circumstances of Darwi n's wo~~ was not ~ out d ~eo~li~~t care what people thought of th e first
growing up black an d wh ite in Am erica. was about the on gm Of speaes, an . .
. t f the third was convtncm g-
The th ird part ofthe normatve scientific process is explanation-the rational, two, as ~ong ~s h u argumens e~~nd aspect of scientific cxplanatio ns, one that
intellectual en ter pri se tha t relates the data collecte d to the problem formulated. This bn~gs us to a a half sin ce Darwin struggled with ment ion ing a
There is never any guarantee tbat a part icular explanation is ngh t, but the m ost h as eme rged m the centur y da nd . de als exclusivcly with th e natu ral world,
useful scientifi c explanat ions ha ve several properties that we can use as guidelines "Creator"-i-namely, th at 010 ern scrence 1 . itual
for the formulation of scientific explanations gen erally. explaining it in terms of its~lf, 1With~t t~:~o~~S:ci~n;es~:irC~:~~ve~rt:p~~der_
First, the y are concerned with proximate cause. rath er than ultima te cause.
Proxim ate cause is mechan ism, a "how" question. Ultim ate cause is a "why" ques- ::~:t~eh:a::r:l::t~~~:;~;~~n:;;,~t iiis knowable; ifit i; ~~:e~::~~~o";:~:::
tion , a [eas on for some thing. This distin ction carne to the fore around 1700, when capricious forces, then these are by thclr natur e u npre le a
Isaac Newton successfully described gravity in ma thematical terro soPrior to th at. and the y ~efeat tite pur~os~~f~~:e;x~:~. for we cann ot prove that. They are simp ly
the fact of apples falling from tre es or plane ts orbiting th e sun were d isparate phe- That lSnot to say.t ey e are also mutuallycont radic tory: If we believe the
nom ena, under the guida nce of sorne heavenly forces that someti mes mad e apples external to mo dern sClcnce. Th Y k h' eh of the many po ssible
fall and held plan ets in check The Newtonian s. however, showed that gravita- worl d was creatro by a divine being. how can we noWw 1
tional attraction was a p roperty of a11 m atter. and th at the descent of the apple to divine beings it was? . . fui nd has had considera ble success
the earth was the same as th e att ractio n of th e planets to the sun. This did not Th' umpti on of naturahsm lS use a .
IS ass . F mple antibiotics were developed to kili bactena.
mean th at God d idn't existo or was not responsiblr for apples an d planets, but in the last few centu ne s. or exa


The Social Matrix o Science 11 !

10 C HAPTE R 1 WH AT ~S ANT H RO PO LO GY?

informed assessment of the possible risks and side effects, rather than a gUb pre-
The action of antibiotics is predicate d on the germ theory of disease, a naturalistic
alternative to the "evl spirits" thcory of dsease. Perhaps antibiotics drive awayevil diction of the future.
Often a scientific analysis will u se statistical tests to see how lik ely a partic ular
spirits in addition to killing germs -c-but th e value to science h as been th at they
situation is to occur by chance alone . If it is less th an 5% likely to be due to ch an ce,
seem to do what the y were developed for, There would have been no ne ed to
we can the situation in question "statis tically signiftcant"-and dedu ce tha !,we are
develop antibiotics without th e germ theory and no way to explain th eir curative
dealing with a nonrandom occurrence , which thus requires a~ explanation . By
value eith er. This obvi ous ly m akes it likely that a certa in class of ba cteri a, which
that very statistical convention, however, we may b e up to 5% hkely to be wro ng,
respond to an tibiotics, cause diseases-c-rather than evil spirits ,
Once again thi s is not to say that evil spirits do not exst, or cause no disease, or likely to be wrong on the average 1 in 20 times. , .' . '
The last stgnature of a good scientfic explanaban lS log ical n ,gor. M~ny ~on
on ly that the dornain of dis eases that can reaso n ably be ascribed to th em is much
scientific systems are very logical, but nevertheless wrong-so be mg logical is no
sma ller th an it used to be.
, A thi rd ch aracteristic of scientific explanations is that th ey strive to be parsi - guarantee that you are right. Purtner, ma ny pr op er inferences h ave been dra:m
from premises that are faulry and th us tu rn out themselves to ~e u seless..But bem~
m~nio~s, ~y ~hich we m ean that they try not to be unnecessarily complicated.
logical, and deducing implications rigorous1y fro m data and mferences , ma kes rt
Th is principie 15 com m only kno wn as "Occam 's razor"-after a medieval philoso-
phe r, who belie~ed in tri m min g away excesstve spec ulations and assumptions. more likelythat you will be right.
~arsImony, on ce again, is a use ful assumption-given n o other information, the
smpler explanat ion is better-but it can easily be itself an oversimplification. THE SO CIAL MATRIX OF SCIENCE
In evolut ion ary studies, we use Occams razor in our assumpt ion th at m aja r
The sociologist Robert Merton devised a fam ous list of four attribut~s of scienc e in
changes (such as bipedalism) gene rally only occurred once. and that con sequ entl y,
1942 which are at best idealizations of the scientific process. Th e lst shows wh at
there is very little parallel evolution- different species evo1ving Into sim ilar forms.
science should Ideally striv e for, alth oug h it is exceedin gly unlikely that it ever has
We assume, rather, tha t species who share fundamental traits with each other inher-
met these standards, and all indications are tha t it is movng farth er away from
ited them from a com mon ances tor; not independently from d verse an cestors.
Ho wever, it is also clear that parallel evolution in sorn e trait s ha s in deed happ ened. them. They are known as CUDOS. . '
Scence. to Merton, is communal-that is, freely shared, m th e public record,
For exa mple, a group of primates share a sign ificant featur e ofthe vertebral column,
and available to all. Only a few years lateroh owever, th is was under mined by the
namely, th at th ey lack a tail. We cal! th em "apes,' and infer tha t the loss of a tail was
Manhattan Project, in wh ich th e be st scen ce su ddenly b ecam e ,Top Secret. In
an evolutionary event in a geologically recent ances tor, which th ey have al! inher -
more recent times, genetics has become ahorne for [nvestm ent capit al: an d co~se
ited. Th ere is also a breed of cats, kno wn as Manx cats, whic h have lost the tail.
quently, the scentfc research is discussed in far more muted tones, l~~t a rival
:hould we infer that Manx cats are apes 0 11 ths basst Probably no t, because accept-
company learn too much too soon. A prom inent genetics resea rch facility ha s a
mg,that tr ait as evidence of intim ate ancestry would mean tha t all the oth er traits by
~h l ch a Manx s.eems to be a cat- ret racting claws, carnassial teeth, givin g birth to sign that says,"BlgBlabsSink Labs," .
Merton's second idealized asp ect of sdence is universalism-that t should b e
Iitters, an d the hke - would have evolved in parallel between cats and "Manx apes "
essentially internation ai and transc end th e cu ltu ral division s in soctcry In pra c-
We see th e one trait-Ioss of the tal-as a parallelism, and the cluster of others-the
tice, though, we commonly find natonal "scho ols" in particular ~~iences-Ja~a
"cat" traits-as more reliable ind icators of ancestry. We therefore use the principIe of
nese prim atologyversus American pri ma tology, for example; or Bntlsh.p~pulatlOn
parsimony as simply another metho do logical tool to try and nvoke evolutonary
genc tca vers us American population gene tics-which makes Mertons Idea once
scenarios that at least keep the idea of p arallel evolu tion to a m inimum.
A fourth cha racte ristic of scientific explanations is that they are probabilistic, again seem oversimplified. .
His third aspect is disinterestedness-that science shou Id no t b e for s~e to
n~ t d e term~nistic-t hat is, they can gene rally rank outcomes as more-or-less likely
profiteers or ideologues; it sho uld be a fair and op en search for truth . But.a,gam, we
glven cert ain boundary con ditions bu t can not tell you the future like No strada-
simp ly do no t see that whe n wc 100k at mo der n science, for exampl~. Politics looks
mus . This, of course, puts science at a distinct disadvan tage to other m odes of
to science to sup port its acti on s, an d scicnce is very much for sale l~ the f~ee ma r-
thought th at foretel! the future wit h great clarity. even if not with great accuracy. 1t
ket of pate nt ing cellHnes and developing new drugs. Ind eed: con~~cts of mt erests
also tends to make scientists p oor witnesses in the courtroom. whe re defin itive
are now so profoun d and prolix that many journals and unIv ersIb es are at a 1055
state me nts are sought, not qualified statis lical outcomes.
Howevcr, th at is a class ic sign ature of science: uncertainty. Preachers ar e abo ut how to dea! with it.
Merton's fourth asp ect is organized skepticism-that sden cc relies no t on
far more ce rtain than sci entis ts are, which m ay be why th ey are often more
authority, but on do ubt, an d th at th e burde n of proof falls on th e resear cher to
convinci n g. But when you are about to have surgery, you m ay well wa nt an

12 C HAPT ER 1 W HAT 15 ANTHROP O LO GY?
prooe a claim-not on the skep tic to deb unk it. In practice, however, we rely great ly
on aut hority, in part because th ere is simply too much to know and we are obligcd
to take th e word of really smart people; and likewise, much of what we lear n about
science comes not from scient ists themselves, but from journ alists. Th is can have
.th c effect ofsidestep ping the critical review and organized skepticism ofscien ce so
.th at it is sadly com mo nplace now for extraordinar y claims to enter the po pu lar
con sciousness-such as th e "gay gene" on the X chromosomc- and to shft the
burden of proof to those who find the claim ludicrou s, and (orce them to waste
their time and resou rces to identify the fatal flaw in the work.
RELATlVIZING SCIENCE
Science is a cultural system in whlc h individuals with com mon ideas, and th eir
own special lang uagc, in teract with one another in complex ways. In so doing, th ey
adva nce themselves, and th ey adva nce the cause of science as well. Science has its
own reward systcm, its own standardized set of obIigations and expectations, an d
its own prom ise of immortality (the citation index, by which a scentists influence
is com mo nly judged) .
Unlik e other cu ltural systems, science appea rs to ad vance un iversally. O ur
knowledge of the wor ld is indee d continually increasing; m ore th ings are being
d scovered, and virtually nothing is forgotten. This is arare instance of cultural
im provem en t, wh ich s more comm only a series of trade -offs- for example, an
increase in techn ology wit h great er fear of the safety hazard s associated with th at
technology, or longer life spans aeeompa n ied by greater alienation of the elderly.
But scien ce as a c ultu ral sys tem do es advance, and it doe s so for a simple
reason - th at ls its goa l. Science generates origin n arr atives about the huma n sp e-
cies, as do all cu ltural systems; and the principal scie nt ific one is of co urse the
evolution of the human species from th e apes of Africa . It s cert ain ly more nearly
correct than any of its alterna tives. But doe s that mean that the alternatives sh ould
be suppressed?
The answer is yes, in the context of science classes, and no , in th e context of
th e free market of ideas in the m odero wo rld. Som e scien tists are app alled that so
many Americans reject evolution in favor ofthe d iverse strains ofChristian crea -
tionism . Such an attitude, ho wever, makes scicnce so und as if it were a eompeting
religio n , whic h it should no t be.
The differenee between thc scientific origin myth (evolution ) and th e Ch ris -
tian one, or any cul tu res origin myth, is a fun damenta l ene. Science was foun ded
in eighteenth-ccntur y Europ ean philosophy as a search fOI a particular kind of
truth - tr uth that can be demonstrated to other people and doc sn't require indi-
vidual revelation or prior commi tm cnt to accep t. Science ha s a single goal - to
de scribe and expla n th e universe most accurately and most fully. Much of scien -
tiflc m ethod can be th ought ofsimply as ways of attaining th at end. And as a result ,
science indeed provides th e most accurat e descript ions and explan ations of the
universe.
The Origins of Anthropology 13
The faet th at most Americans rejeet parts of it may not be so much a result of
their stupidity but of the r possession of d fferent pr iorities th an scicn tists h ave.
After all, how mu eh does it really matter whe th er or not you are descended from a
late Mioeene apet . .
Other origin rnyths have features th at science lacks. For example, they bind
you to the commun ity. Th ey teUyou right fro m wrong, and give. you moral orien-
tation. They tell you that the universe is ultimately just , and ben gn, an d that your
life is important. They make you feel good abo ut your place in the spiritu al order,
and impart meaning to your life and to the events within it. . .
Science does none of these. lt just seeks the mo st accurate description and
explan ation of th e un iverse. Beeause it lacks the other goals that or igin rnyths
commonly have, it is ha rd to say that evolution s "better" than those other myths,
if we use better in an ordin ary and fairly broad sense. Evclut ion is clearly be tter,
howeve r, f we use the narrow criterion of simply "being the mos t empir ieally
accurate," But that, of cou rse, is scence's ow n criterion -a highly arb itrary scale of
comp arison . And it should not be surprising th at science fares well by that cr ite-
rion bec ause th at is what sclentflc methodologies were develop ed foroIt h as been
said th at science is a "self-correcting myth" - that s, a linear narrative co ntinually
changing to bring itself into line with reality. .
Most scence.Jke mo st of any industry, consists of'bo n ng work- "tu rmn g the
crank,' so to speak. Historian of scicnce Thom as Kuh n called th is "normal sci-
ence" But rarel y a revolutionary new idea comes along, one th at causes th e com-
mu nity, or a large segm ent of it, to rethink th eir work and to rein~erpret th eir.data.
Th is "paradigm shift" (in Kuhns phrase) sgnals a time of great intellectual insta-
bility and grea t creativity, a scientlfic revolutio n. Unfortun~tely, these are. on ly
observable in ret rospect, and since Kuhns wor k app eared m thc 19605, u h as
become un for tunately too commonp lace for scientists to claim to be lead tng, par
ticipa ting in , or witnessing a pa radigrn shft in their field.
T HE O RIG I N S O F ANTHROPOLOG Y
Anthropology, howcver, began with just sueh a paradigm s~ i.ft, articul ated i~. 1872
by Edward B. Tylor, a professor at Oxford, in his boo k Prmitive Culture. Wntm g at
a time when Darwinism was revolution izing thc biological scien ces, Tylor took an
interest in the behavioral d fference s amo ng hwnan groups. The common wisdom
of the age was th at no rthern Europe was th e most advanced place on earth, both
mentally and physically, and its inhabitants had a right- perhaps even a duty-to
colonize the rest of the world and to subd ue and supplant its ind igenous inhabita nts.
Th is was justfied 0 0 th e grounds th at Europcans were superior beings- mor ally,
mentally, techno logically.and physicaUy. And as Darwin had articulated in the sub-
title of h s most famous book ("T hc Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle
for Lfe"), it was the fate of the unfavored races to be eliminated by th e favored ones .
Tylor (an d his Germn contemporaries) undermi ned th is argu ment wth a
two-part attack that beeame cent ral to th e developmcn t of anth ropology. ''he first
,
 14 CHAP TER 1 W HAT IS AN T H ROP OL O GY?
carne' to be known as "the psychic unity of mankind"- that people everywhere
have pretty much the same intellectu al capacities. Geniuses are, by deflnition, rare;
we're not talking abou t their capacities, just those of the normal folk. Thu s, peopIe
from Zimbabwe or Tibel or New Zealand can plot jet planes and splice DNA and
write ant hropology books, if they are so inclined. There is no good reason to think,
when we surveyed the worlds works and the accomplishmen ts of its diverse peo-
ples, that any of them is a substantiaJly superior cluster of organic beings than any
other. . from those of Europeans that they must have been the produ cts of seprate crea-
The second part of Tylor's attack is one that is so familiar to us now that we
hardly can even thin k it might have been a new idea-n amely, that the customs
and laws of a people compris e something categorically dstnct from their bolog-
cal natures. He called this "culture"- "that complex whole which iucludes knowI-
edge, beltef art. Iaw, mora ls, custom, and any other capabilities a.id habits acquired
by man as a member of socery"
The distinction between the learned and the instinctual had been long
acknowJedged, but Tylor meant something more-specifically. the cumulat ive
social traditions of a group of peopIe, which could even be thought of as having a
Iife of their own.
Th is new distinction between biology (or nature, or race- aH often used
synonym ously at the tim e) and "culture" carred a very imp ortan t polit ical
implication. If peoples prim itive-seem ing Iifeways did not imply their physical
primitiveness or inferiority, then there was no longer a justflcat on in nature for
maltreating or exterm inating them. And if people everywhere had pretty much
the same capabilities for acquiring culture, then lhc humane ami reasonable course
of action would be to educate th em , not tn kill them. Anthropology, wrote Tylor,
was "a reformer's science."
In America, the German-born anthropologisl Franz Boas gave "culture" its
more mo dern use, as the localized, and generalIy unconscious, ways that particu-
Ier groups of people Impose meaning on their surroundi ngs, and to sorne extent
constr uct their world and their lives. "Culture" was to become more than just the
social components of "nurture" as opp osed to "nat ure"- it was like the unified
spiril ofa peop le, suffusing ail aspects of what they did and how they thought
about th mgs. It was acquired by growing up with them, and studied by living with
them . Most importa ntly, it was now used as a plural. for each people had their
own "culture." And alth ough groups of pe ople differed from one ano ther in their
gene pool . in the language they spoke, and in their culture, aU thre e of these fea-
tures were distinct from one another and could change ind epend ently of one
ano ther.
THE OR IGINS OF PHYSI CAL ANTHROPOLOG Y
Physical anthropology, on the other hand, began in no such radical conceptual
break. If anything, it began in a far more inlellectually primitive clmatc, one
which held tha t "cvilzed races" must have better (or at least, bigger) brains than
The Origina of Physical Anthropology 15
"uncivilized races,"and thus began intensively to investigate variatio n in size and
shape of the skull-the bones in which the brain is encased-across the human
specics. .
Bythe 1840s. early American physical anthropologsts were busy sludymg the
skullsofI ndians and of other non-white peopIes in the hopes offndi ng an orgaruc,
"physcal" basis for their social and econornic inferiority. So~e found in thi~ actv-
ity a justification for slavery, holding that the heads of Afncans were so different
tions, In Franee at thls time, the first professional soclety of physical anthropology
was founded on such ideas by the great cranial anatomist Paul Broca.
The advent of Darwinism dd little to cur b such odious science. Wh ere pre-
Darwinian students of hum an form freely associated Africans with apes, as
scmehow "lower'' th an Europeans, post-Darwinian scholars appropriat d their
familiar imagery but do aked the arguments in evolutionary terms. Thus, whe re
previously it rnight have been mainta ined that Africans had been created by
God as intermediate beings between Europeans and apes. it could now be argued
(by first.gene ratio n evolutionists such as the German Ernst Haeckel and th e
English Tho mas Hux 'ey) that they had evolved from apes. bul just no! asjar as
Europeans hado . .
By the end of the ninetee nth centur y. there was httle recogmzabIe as ~rofcs-
sional physical anthrop ology. American practitioners had .a mas~ed collections of
skulls and skeletons from Indian burial s; Europeans tran ed In anatomy were
studying the fossils ofNeandertals and comparing the bodies ofhuma~s and apes.
German anthro pologists were surveying the human form andomeasunn.gthe bod-
ies of schoolchildren to assess the "racial" composition of ther popul at~ons. ,
One such scholar was Franz Boas. who was traine d initially in physlcs, then m
geography, and last in anthropology in Germany. Boas lived among t~e natives ~f
the Northwest coast of the United States and the neighboring reglons III Canada I~
the 1880s. supporling his studies of their lifeways by seiling their goods (and their
bones) to mu seums. Hired in 1897 by Columbia University for lus expcrtIse m
human body form ohe ultirnately mad e his major impact in cultural anthro~olog.y
and is largely responsible for professionalizing the fieId of anth ropology. with his
formalization of the distinc tions among race, language. and culture.
The person credited with professionalizing the subfieId of physicalanthropol-
ogy. however,was a Bohemian-born doctor named AleS Hrdlicka. ~n avid student
of the skelelon and the skull, he studed physical anthropolo gy m France and
obtained an appointment at the Smithsonian Institut ion. building .up its col.l~c
tions, and bccomin g the foremost authority on the skeletons of Indians. Hrdl~cka
founded the American lournal ofPhysicalAnthropology in 1918 and the American
Association ofPhysical Anthropolog sts in 1930. . ' .
Hrdlika, however, as a museum scentst, did little teachlll~ or trammg, of
junior scientists. That part was taken by a classicist from Wisconsm, who studed
anthropology as a Rhodes Scholar al Oxford, and subsequently took a post at Har-
vard that he held for about 40 years- Earnest Hooton. Hooton trained virtually
 16 C HAPT ER 1 WH AT 15 AN THR O POL O G r?
Biological Anth ropology Tod ay 17
thHe entiredfielldbo: physical anthropologists over those decad es and was very much
a arva r ce e nty academic. paleoanthropo logy, and human var iation (or human bology, especially in th e
~uch of physical anthropology th r0 \lgh w orld War II consist ed ! d United Kingdo m).
mentmg the phY~icaI differences amon g human groups and attemptin t~ncla~s~U- Each of these areas, however, is highly nterdisciplnary, and within each of

~~~~ ~~I~:tr ~:I': 'm:~~~d W~r II was a crisis for physical anthropolo:. howeve~ thern, there is considerable variation in tbe scholarly training and approaches of
practitioners. Thus, primatology commonly attracts researchers trained principally
5urprisingly difflcult to d~~~t~~;~s:;:o:~~::~:~c:~:s~~::nl {n~ to field and yet in psychology or wolog y;paleoanthro pology commonly attracts researchers trained
gled to differentiate them ,largely in vain, . erpart, Dotan strug- in geology or anatorny;and hum an variation may attract researchers from genetcs,
Physical anlhropology wa . II bu forensic scences, or medicine. On the other hand, it is also quite rare for a university
Sher woo d W hb s essenta y re uilt intellectually in the 1950s by psychology department lo house a prmatologist, or a geology department lo hou se
anatorny of ma:nk~;;';a~~:;~~~~~~Sd ~octoratc with Hoot~n in 1940 on the a paleoanthropologist, or criminal justice department to house a forensic scientist.
that was centered on m easuring peoples 5k~~sda~~; o~ the.physlcaI anthropology Blological anthropology affords a large enough intellectual umbrella for all of
oc another- it was static and typological h drelega~ng them to one group these areas of study, for they are all relevant to the field's focus. At the same time ,
evolut ona - j- theory nor the reality of h ' e sonuh '. t re ected neither modern though, this breadth sometimes results in a strong centripetal force-as scholars
"new" h ' 1 uman popu auo ns. What was needed was a engaged in biological anthropology research are pulled away from the field's core,
tation:Po::l;~a;:~~~~o~~~, ~ne ~ocused on th,e dynamics of evolutio n and adap- anthropology.
H e er mtegrated with modern evolutio b I
" um,~n evoluton, ~ather than racial classification, would be at tbe ::~erI:f~r' Counteracting this is an academic centrifugaI force, drawing from contempo-
rary anthropological ideas and themes in our understandi ng of the flelds btclo g-
t~:~iO~~;;:~;~~~ta~~~::~root~d in an understanding ofhow humans f it int~ cal aspects. Many biological anthropologists study the anthropologica l themes of

~~PC:~~~d~:~~f:r~~~:::a::~c:s~~~~~~eh' ~;~~~:;:dt~t~~~;u~~~e:~::~~:I;
fh prrmo r la entage ID human existence th b I
ogy o uman populatons, and particularly ofh unter-gatherers. - e 10
anth Importantly, Washburn envisioned this as a biological subfield inte rated into
cohe r?po~ogy, For exa~ple, he interpreted the interactions ofbaboons ~s socially
power, gende r, and difference as they are manifested eithe r in the biology of
huma n populations or in our ancestors or primate relatives. Others are involved in
analyzing the ways in which modern genetic research is changing our ideas about
the bod y, about who we are, about where we carne from, and about who owns
body parts. After all, the feld took its mo der n shape with the large-scale collection
of Indian bones without much concern for the descendants or even relatives of the

Jo~~~~:i::~E~:~~~7.;~~~~~:~~:E;:~~:~~}~::~~~;;n:so:;:~~:
grsts work, for example, in concert with local 1 ' prt mato o-
people whose bones they were. Federal legislation enacted in 1990. the Native
America n Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, makes it clear that the bo nes
have different meanings to different peoples, and the alternatives to the scientific
primate conservation. Most stu dents of the : eo e ;nd governm~nt agencies, for
p
meaning s must be acknowledged and respected.
work of h uman ada bi . . uman orm work within the frame - Thus, for example, a biological anthropologist in 1950 could examine a thigh-
f . pta ibty studies, documenting the plasticity of th h
orm und er dfferent ecological and economic circum e uman bone (femur) and treat it as an object- an " t" - a disembodied piece of dead mat-

;U~:d~~he:~;~~::/~~~~~;~~~:~creasingIY domi~ated ~;:c~:I:~a:~~~;~d:u~: ter. The old biological anthropologist might well handle It delcately and
acknowledge that the femur once was par t of a person, but the view of science is
vards \VilIiam Howells and OXfor~~~~:~W~s~~rns cOlntempora~ies, such as Har - that there is a boundary between life and nonlife, and once dead, the femur is an
" ". . ep emer, a 50 recogmzed the need for object, not a person,
:p;~;~a~;c~:c:;:~~!IZ:d ~~:ical anthropology. Many practitioners also began to And yel the boundary between lfe and no nlfe may nol be so d ear. After all,
incorporate- such a: 6~~ a:;tup~~::t~~~ha~othr e"Bs~b1ec~s
it now began to there is still organic matt er-DNA and protein- present in the cells of the bo nes.
b ' ' 10 ogica anth rop ology"
egan to come into use to encompass the expand ing scope of the field. And in spite of the reality of the transformation from human to corpse, s the
transform ation really so profoundly different from other transforrnations, such as
adolescence and old age, that the femur cannot be seen any more as part of a per-
BIOLOGI CA L ANTH ROP OL O GY TODAY son? Could one no! make a case that any body part remains a par t of that person,

~:1Il::n:.::~e~~ :~e;I:~;I:~i;:~ ;~yt~;:~o~~pg:c/s's

even through the transition of death? lfyour leg remained your leg throughout the
a hdiverse field of stud y, profound physical changes associated with birth, childhoo d, sexual mat urity,
b W I of uma ns as gro up mem aduIthoo d. and senescence, why should it cease being your leg just because you
ers. e genera Iy recognize a th ree-part division in the Beld" -
. pnmato ogy. have stopped breathing and have begun decomposing?
 :01

Refere nces and Fu rther Readng 19

18 CHAPT ER 1 W HA T 15 AN THROPOLOGY?

Hooton , E. A. 1946. Upftom the Ape. New York.: Macmillan. .

290 Hrdlika, Ale . 1914. Physical anthropology in America: An historical sketch . Amencan
11

I
i Anth ropologist 16:507-554. . . .
Bas Washburn
Darwin Hrdlicka Howells Kuhn. T. 1962. The Structure ofScientific Revolutions. Chicago: Un versity of Chicago Press .
Huxley Weiner Kuklck, H. ed, 2008. A !Vew History ofAnthropology. New York: Blackwell. .
Haec kel I
Lttle, M. and K. Kenn edy, eds. 2010 . Histories of American Physical Anthropology In the
Broca NAGPRA
Hooton Twentieth Century. Lanham, MD: Lexingto n Books.
Tylur
Marks, J. 2000 . She rwood washburn, 1911- 2000. Evolutionary An thropology 9:225-226.
Figu re 101. Time line of major works. pec ple, and events discussed in th is Marks, J. 2009. Why 1 Am Not a Scientist: Anthropology and Modern Knowledge. Berke ley:
chapte r. Unive rsty of California Press . .
Mner, Horaee. 1956. Body rit ual among the Naci rema. Ame rican Anth ropologlSt 54:503-

These are qu estions confronting modern b.ologica l ant hropologists, who
have to navgatc bctwee n th e sensibilities of peopIes and the study of the ir ances-
tors' bod y parts. Similarly, an thropolog ical genetics h as had to face such issues in
recent years, as its sto ck- in -trade, the blood of exo tc peopIes, has come increas-
ingly to be a vaIuable commodity -in pharmaceutical and geno mic research.
If th ere are pat cnt s to be filed and mo ney to be made, sh ould not the per son who se
bod y it carne from share in the pro fit? AIternative1y, f th e blood belon gs only to
th e researcher after it enters the test tube , why sh ould aoyone p art icipa te in a
genetic study?
These are, of eou rse, issues of property right s and eth cs, which have emerged
by virtue of new scen tific tech nologies mt crs ectng with econom ie and poli tical
(orces. Half a century ago, biological an th ropo logy co uId shield itse1f behind a
screen ofvalue-ne utral scien ce"- but that pn vlege n o Ionger exists.
Scien ce is a part of the culture ofthe modern world and ofthe globa l econ omy.
Biolog cal an throp ology is con scque n tly bound up in n cw idea s abo ut science,
ne w ide as ab out the body, and ne w idea s about rights. An d as such , it Is becom ing
situ ated onc e m ore in an anthropological dialogue. a dialogu e of mediation.
507. d e
Proctor, Robert. 1991. ValucFrce Sciencet Purity and Power in Modern Knowle ge. am -
br idge. Ma ss: Ha rvard Un versit y Press. . . ' .
Rapp, Rayna. 1999 . Testing Women. Testing the Fetus: The Soca lmpact 01AmnlocentCSls In
America. New Yor\:;,: Rout ledge.
Spencer; F., ed. 1997. tstory ofPhysical Anthropology: An Encydopedia. New York: Garland
Press.
Stocking, George W. 1 9~70 Victorian Anthropology. New York: Free Pr~ss.
Sulloway, Frank J. 1982. Da rwins conversi n: The Beagle voyage and ts aftermath . Journal
. o/the History o/Biology 15:325-396.
Tylor, Edwa rd B. 1872. Primitive Culture: Researches nto the Development of Myt hology,
Philosophy. Religion, Language, Art and Custom. London: J~hn Murray.
Wash burn, S. 1. 1951. The ne w physical anth ropology. Transactronsof the New York Acad-
emy of Scences, Series 11 13:298- 304 .

REFER ENCES AND FU RT HER READI N G

Beckwith , Ionathan R. 200 2. M aking Genes, Ma king Waves: A Social Ac tivist in Science.
Cambridge, MA: Har vard University Prcss.
Boas, Franz. 1911. The M ind ofPrm it ve Man . Ncw York: Maemillan .
Boas . Franz. 1940. Race, Languageand Culture. New York: Macm i llan.
Bourgois, Philippe. 19950 In Searcb of Respect: SellingCrack i-i El Barrio. New York: Cam-
bridge Universty Press.
Darnell, Regna. 200 1. Invisible Genealoges: A History of Americanist An thropology. O m aha:
Un iversity of Neb rask a Press.
Darwin to J. D. Hooker , 29 Mar ch 1863. (http ://www.d arwioproject.ac .u klentry- 406 5)
Puller; Steve. 1997. Sciencc. Minne apo lis: Un ivcrsity o f Minnesot a Pre ss.
Gmel ch, George. 2002. Baseball magic. In A nn ual Ed tons, A nthrcp ology 02/ 03, ed .
E. Ange1oni, 171-175. New York: McGrawHill/Dushkin.
Goodm an, Alan R ., and Thomas 1. Leatherman, eds. 1998. Building a New Biocultural Syn-
thesis: Political-Economic Perspecrtves on Human Biology. Ann Arbor : Un iversity of
Michi gan Press.

C HA PTER 2
Where Did Our Scentfc Ideas
about Ourselves Come Prom?
(On th e History of Science)
T HE ME
Scie nce is a cultural systern, bu t be cause it has a soli tary goal- empr ical
accu rac~-:-it self-corrects and fares well when comp ared for its accuracy against
othe r ongm myths with add itional , conflicting goals. Science is a cultu ral1y situ-
ate~ system ofknowledge production that bega n to em erge in Rena issance Eurc pe.
As Its ru les em erged, they began to be applied to understanding the place of
h umans in the natural arder.
T HE BEGI NNI N GS OF A NEW VIEW
OF NATURE
The ~e~r 1543 is a good place to start because far from being an entircly arbitrar y
year; rt 15 t~e year that two crucial1y imp ortant works-paradigm-shifting works-
WC:C publ~shed. E~'rope was u ndergoing a rebirth or "renai ssan ce" in ar t, looking
to ItS classical anc rent past for inspira tion. Th e authority of the medieval Catho lic
Ch urch had been coming under attack since a 34-yea r-old cleric named Ma rt in
L~t~er had expressed h is outrage at its earth ly workings in 1517 by posting 95
critical th eses un the door of h is chu rch at Witten bur g. The se radical ideas could
be dissem n ated far more r apidly th an ever before, since rnovabl e type had been in
use for sevc.ral d~cades, pio~~ercd by a printer named Ioh annes Gutenberg.
lo to thi s social and poli tical cont exr, an elderly Pclish ast ronom er aIlowed h is
radical ide as to be p ublished under his Latin ized name Nicolau s Cop erncus as he
lay dying. Copernicus believed that the existing observational data on the solar
system coul d be explai ned just as easily by a new approach, as it was by the age- old
Greek system that hel d thc earth to be con stan and mot ion less and the celestia l
bodies to revolve aro und it.
His idea was heliocentrism. that the sun - not the earth -is th e center of the
solar system and that all the plan ets excep t the rnoon revolve aro und It, rather th an
?n
The Sclentfc Revolution 21
aroun d the earth. Thls idea was radical, although much ofhis work- On the Revo-
utions 01 the Celestial Spheres- was noto Coper nicus had made no new observa-
tions that proved his case (lke, for example , Galileos obser vation of moons
orbiting jpiter, decades later). Rather, he pleaded his case as a theoretical cons is-
teney argumento showing that the available astronomical data could be explained
in this new way at least as wel1 as the old way. Like th e old view, he believed that
heavenly bodies moved in perfcct circle s (not in odd ellpses, as Kepler would later
show) and that th ey were emb edded in perfcet solid sphe res.
0 0 the other han d, his idea implied that th e h eavens were considerably larger
than th ey app eared and that th e earth was not their center. If tr ue, it mpled MO
th ings: flrst, received wisdom might be wrong: and second, humans migh t well
oeeupy a per iph eral spot in the earth and the heavens and thus might not h ave
beenthe focal po int of th e creation ofthe universe.
Th e same year, a Flemish physician called Andreas Vesalius publi shed a
dfferent kind of work- higWy empirical and deliberate ly provocative-On the
Fabric01the Hum an Body. Whereas earlier me dical treatises contained highly styl-
Ized represen tatio ns of th e human body, Vesalius ilIustratcd his with brill iantly
deta iled and realistic rcn derings of the body, m uscu lature, skeleton, and organs.
His radicalisrn was not so much in th e implcaton s of a th eory but in the rnethods
of acquiring knowledge. How did Vesalius know how to draw the hu man bo dy?:
because he looked inside it, and saw for h imself. And his message was, f you look
inside th e human yoursclf, this is what you'll see. He ealled for ph ysicians to learn
anatorny by dissect ing human eorpses and seeing it firsthand for th emselves.
Also u nlike Copcrn cus, Vesalius bol dly dem on strated that th e received wis-
dom from aneient texts was ind eed wro ng in places. Where the ancic nt Rom an
physician Galcn ha d made certain claims abo ut the hu man body, Vesalius coul d
demonstrate that the claim was based not on the str ucture of the human body but
on th at of a p lg, or horse, or mon key-because the human body dffered from
whar the ancient text sald. All J Ou had to do was look[or yourself.
TH E SC IENTIFIC REVOLUTIO N
The culm inat ion ofthe 1543 works of Cop em cus and Vesalius was a new approaeh
to the natur al world. From Cop ern icus we learn ed th at new ideas m ight supersede
old enes, and th at the human sp eces, and the earth, might not hold such glor cd
positions in the cosmos. From Vesalius we learned th at empric sm was the most
direct approach to gain ing ne w knowledge . The empirical approach was thc way
te gain an accurate description of thi ngs: an d it might b e poss ble to establish such
new kn owlcdge in formal zed and generalized ways.
Two suc h formali zers in th e 1600s were the Italian ast ro n om-er/ phys icist
Galileo Ga lilei and th e French m ath em atician/philosopher Rene Desca rtes.
Am ong th eir rnany contrbutions, we lea rned from the former about regu lad-
ties of motion an d from th e larter, how to represent nature in two dimen sions
C'Cartesia n coordinar es") . Indeed Descar tes formalized the new vew of n ature

22 CHA PTER 2 W H ERE DI D O UR SC IEN TI FIC I DEAS CO~I E FRO M ?
as n~thing but matter and motion, categorically distin ct from mind and spir it.
Tber contemporary. Francis Bacon, did no t write any of Sh akespeare's plays (as
rU,m or once ~ad it) but dd propagand ze ext ensivcly fo r "the new philosophy"-
sciencc-e-which wouId bri ng a better life for a11 , if it wer e allowc d to grow
and flourish.
. William Harvey was th e epitome of th e new approach to the hu.m an body. He
desgned and conducted experi ments to see whether the hear t was really a heater
for newly created blood - as ancient wisdom (and contemporary thought) had it,
or whether the heart is a pump. with th e blood circulating th ro ugh th e body and
returning after ,com pleting a cycle, Of course, h e discovere d the latter, setting off a
new way ofseemg th e body-as a machine composed of functioning parts- and a
new way of findi ng abou t how bodi es work: biological experimento
But the pcrson who carne to emb ody science was Isaac Newton-ma the-
matici an , ph ysicist, and mystic. Newton was a very undistinguished school chld
until , as Iegeo d has It, an apple fell 0 0 his head aod he got to wooderiog why thiogs
fallo Find ng th e m athe ma tics of the day inadequat e to the task, be inven ted his
own "rnethod of fluxions," which we now kno w as calculus. In h is Principia (1687),
Newton set for~h tbe fund amental laws of m otion tbat are oh eyed by a ll things in
the k.nown. ~OIvers e; moreover, he described gravity mathem atically, unifying
an d forn:ahzm~ th e pro cess by which app les fall from trees on earth and plan ets
are kept In rnonon around the sun in the heavens. Th e earth and the heavens were
not so dtfferent after all, if the same ma thematical generali zations could be applied
lo both.
~cience after Newton was quite slrnply different , and he became its epitome-
both In good and bad senses. In the bad sense of the modern view of the scientist,
Newto n was very comp etitive-he destroyed h is perceived cn em ies and sought
full ~nd uns~ ared credit for everyt hing he worked on. Publicly he so un ded mag-
na mmou s-; If 1 have seen furthe r, it is because 1 have stood on the sho ulders of
giants," he said - but he h eld stron g gru dges against oth er scien tists for daring to
try and share th e in tellectual spotlght with h im and again st the German ma the-
m atician Leibn iz for inven ting calculus indepe nd ently. He was also an obsessive
w~rkaholic with cons cquent soci al and m ent al problems, and a lifelong bachelor
with no kn own rom ant ic int erests.
In th e goo d sense of the m odero view of the scientist, however; Newtons work
defined the do ma in of science an d fr amed its objectives. In the first plac e, it was
n ow clear th at th ere was a grea t deal the Bible had left out: math, th e h eliocentric
solar syste~, gravty, and motion, just for starters. Cleariy there was value in ga ing
beyood, or n dep en den tly of, th e Bible in a seareh for kn owledge.
. Second, Newton and hi s followers dr ew a dlstinction between proximate and
ultimate cause. whle the di stinction had been acknowledged sin ce ancient tim es.
the new science bro ugh t th e distinction to th e for egrou nd and made pro xim ate
cause th e goal of scienc e, demarcating it from th eological speculations on ulti -
mate or final cau ses. The philosophical implic ations of Newton's uni fed physics
were staggering because they literally red efin ed the dom ain of God 's wor k.
,
The Decline of Degeneration 23
If there were great generalizations to b e discovered concern ing the way in
which light, or rnass, o, gravity wor ked, th en Go d 0 0 loo ger oeeded lo be iovoked
in every particular instance o lght , or ma ss, or gravity. Rathe r, God coul d be seen
as having devised these generalizations at the beginning o time, and th en havin g
let the universe run tself This carne to be known as the "mech anical ph iloso -
phy" -the cosm os as a great mach ine (an appropriate metaphor for the tim.e,. of
course), running essentially like a great dock, built by God but no longer requinng
His vigo rous interventlon.
Thus, Go d carne to b e seen as the Creato r of the laws of matter and moton,
which Newto n had d iscovered. If God were a lawm aker, and had en dowe d
nu ma ns with th e intelligenc e to study th e world, it follewed that di scovering the
laws by whieh God set the world up was an ad m irab le pursuit. Aod tha l beeame
the ohject of science : to find underlying regul arity in nature, specfc instances or
events were no longer as interesting or imp ortant as th e underlyin g law estab-
lished by God.
Thus, not on ly was God rem oved from immediate event s, and His dom ain
now rest ricted , but Nature itself thereby bec ome less mysteri ous and mor e funda -
meolally knowable. It h ad a divioeIy established orde r, set in motion by God .
Inde ed there was someth ing fund amentaUy religious about studying Nature, fcr
by comng to study th e divine workings as the yare manife st in th e n atural order,
you can come to know th e mind of God. The power of thi s view is retained even
today. Compare, forexample, President Clinto n s words when the Huma n Genome
Projec t announced the human DNA sequen ce in 1999: "Ta day we are learning th e
language in wh ieh God erealed Ife,"
Biology, alas, lagged far behiod ph ysics aod mathematics wheo t carne lo
generaHzations and laws. There seemed to be Iittle you could learn from studyin g
life th at had th e spiritual value of studying m atter and motion, the fundamental
. consti tuents of the un iverse. Neverth eless, there were sorne profou nd changes
occurri ng at th s time in certain elem ent s of our understanding of the human con-
ditio n as well.
THE DECLINE OF DEGENERATION
For well over a thousand years, m edie val Iife h ad been govern ed by a view of
human existence that was both static and pessimi stic. It held th at man had sin ned
in th e Garden of Eden (and th at it was woma ns fault!) and as a result , had "fallen
from grace"- so brth was p aioful,life was tou gh, aod relief could ooly be expec ted
through dea th, assumng you were a good Christian. Earth rem ained in a state of
moral decay, reflected in material d ecay. an d would only get bett er with the ret urn
of Christ. Moreover; it was tan tamount to sac rilegious to tr y and improve you r lot
on earth; God wanted you to focu s on the next world, not on thi s one. This natu-
rally encaded a justficaton for a stable social hierarchy-and th e futility of aspi ra-
tions to upw ard mobili ty th at m ight upset that h ierarchy. Lfe sucked, then you
died. (Th en, if yO" were lucky, you went lo heav eo .)
 24 C HAP TE R 2 WHE RE D IO OU R SC IEN T I FIC ID EAS COME FROM?
.And yet by the sevent eent h an d eighteen th centuries, a different and m ore
optim istic view was becom ing dissemin ated. There were lands of grcat riche s,
resources, and opportunities, wh ich could provide fortun e for an ambitious sailor,
m erch ant, or investor. Science was promoting the vaIue of invention , and the
Industrial Revolution was showing how creativty an d hard work could change no t
ooly your Itfe for the bett er, but everyones llfe for the better. Maybe things weren't
so bad after al!!
Consequently, the do ur view of dege neration carne to be replaced by a more
opt imistic view of socia l hi story as progress. Thi ngs could imp rove 0 0 earth,
durng your lfetime . You could Iive a better life than your pa rents had known .
Maybeit wasn't lifc that sucked, but just the feud al poli tical and econo m ic system -
and since yotl could see pe ople gett ing freer and wealthie r, may be the pu rpos e of
h istory wasn't to h ave you loo k backward with remorse, but to look for ward with
an ticipation.
What the n ew idea of social pro gress d id was lo get peop le thinking about
earthly pro pert ies as being mportant, rather tha n pas sively accepting the world as
it was p assed down to you- and th inking about change as a fundamen tal part of
hu man his tory. In othcr words , a new dynarnic social universe was supplanting the
old st atic order of things .
TH E ANATOMY OF A " PYGM IE"
Travelogu es from ancient times to the eighte enth cent ur y had me n tioned remote
caces of people with on e ere, oc one leg, or no hca d: th ose who h issed like snakes ,
oc ate thcir children, oc Iivedn caves. Saflcrs ha d been repor ting the existence of
bizarre, manlike beasts far away: but then th ey were kn own to be grcat exaggera-
tors, and th ey also rep orted rnermaids. Ships to the East Indi es or Africa occasion-
ally tried to bn ng an example of these ap es horne, bu t th e ocean voyage and dlet
had never permitted it succcssfully. FinalIy, in 1698, a young and ailing chimp an-
zee arri ved in England from West Africa.
It died sho rtly thereafter; bu t becam e the subject of arre of th e most important
scientiflc monographs of the age: Edward Tyso ns (1699) Orang- Outang, sive Horno
Sy lvestris; or, The Anatomy ofa Pygmie, Comp nred With That of a M onkey, an Ape,
and aMan . Tyson was the leading anatomist in England and provded n ot only a
~omp etent dissection but th e frst clearly ident ifiable p ictures of an ape (the ape in
th e tille of his work ac tua lly refers to short-taled m on keys, whi ch were well-
known).
Tyson made two crucial po ints in his monograph. The first is th at in tabulat-
Ing th e n um ber of obser vable rescmblan ces between the chimpanzee and a human,
versus between thc ch im pan zee an d a mon key, he couId iden tify 48 anatomical
resemblances to a hu ma n but onl y 34 lo a monkey. But of course it was not human,
but an an imal tha t lookcd m ore lkc a human than Iike anything else. Th e secon d
cruci al po int was that its sim ilari ty to the human suggested physical contin uity
bctween th e animaIs and ourselvcs. Certai nly the resemblances between the
Bblical Fallibility, or al Least Incompleteness 25
human body and th ose of other anima ls had lon g been recogn zed, but th is was
something mo re: a creatu re more simil ar to a human than to anyth in g else. 1t
would no longer be possble to think ofhumans as distinct from a11 other forms of
life-physieaUy, at least.
The overwhelm ing str uctu ral similarity to th e human forro directly suggeste d
to Tyson that it had been ereated to be fun etionally like a hu m an as well. The
bone s and musdes of its legs were so similar to those of th eir human counterparts
that Tyson could on ly ima gine th at it waIked upright, as human do, and th at it ,:"as
made for do ing so. And yet he had seen it walk ng, but it did so on alI fours, usm g
the kn uckles of its hand s. Perhaps, he reas oned , it was only doing that becausc it
was sck. He resolved thi s paradox by having it dr awn nelther fuUy uprght, nor
knuc k.1e-walk.ing, but standi ng with th e aid of a cane oThis would encapsulate the
symb olc po sition o the ape -nearly hu man ph ysically. but not qu ite-an ncom-
plete person, suggesting a state oc a time of subhumanity. Perhaps th at is why the
cane stuck with plctures of apes for about the next 150 years.
BI BLIC AL FALLIBILITY, OR AT LEAST
INCOMPLETENESS
Hu man origins ha d been rather simple to un dersta nd. God created th e world in
less than a week: and ne ar the end, he created a roan ("Adam" is Hebrew for "man")
and shortly thereafter took a rib and built a lfe mate for him ("Eve" or "Chava" is
Hebrew for "lfe"). There was speculatio n as to whether Adam had a navel o r not-
lf so, th en why, for he h ad no umbilieus; and f not, then he was oddly different
from YOil and me. But by an d large, th ere seem ed no com pelling reason to ques-
tion the Biblical narrative.
That situation cha nged in 1492. Clearly there were diverse and unfamiliar
people out th ere, far away. How did th ey get there! The Bible didn't sayoWere th ey
human. with souls and thus requi ring salvat ion? The Bble did n't sayoIf they were
descen ded from Adam and Eve, how d id they come to be as they are? The Bible
d dn't say: And the y must be descended from Ada m and Eve, rnustnt the y!
A papal deeree in the early 1500s declared th e inhabitants of the New World
to be fuUy human and lost after tbe Tcwer of Babel (in wh ch people tried to build
a tower to reachheaven, and God respo nded by destroying th e tower and inflict-
ing different languages upon the bulders , thus confusing them so they could no
longe r cooperate). .
A you ng, seventeenth -century, rabbinical student in Ams terdam named
Baru ch Spinoza posed a ques tion to the scholars: If Moses wro te th e first five
books of th e Bible, as tradition holds, th en how eould he possibly have wr itten
abo ut his own death and burial in Ch apter 34 of Deuteronomy, the fifth book of
the Biblel Upon his sub sequent excommunication from the Du tch [ewish com -
munity, Spinoza adopt ed th e Latin name Benedictus (whch, like Baru ch, means
"blessed") and eontinued lo study philosophy. Spinoza is eredited with d evisin g a
 26 C HA PTER 2 WHERE DI D O U R SC IENTIFI C IDEA S COM E FRO M ?
fully rational philosophical systern in whic h God becomes virt ual1ysynonyrnous
with His construction of the nat ural order, and reason is thc key to undcrstanding
th e proccss by which tha r un iverse carne to be. More mp or tantly, howevcr, Spinoza
dem and cd that th e Bible be taken as an hi storica l do cum ent- not as a doc ument
about h istory bu t as a do cum ent situated within history. His work marks th e
beginning of the "higher criticism" of the Bible. . Monogeni sm, however, car rted with it an important implicatio n. Accepting
It is in this intellectual climate that a French Calvn st scholar and diplomat
n amed Isaac de la Peyrere p ublished a book in 1655 that pa les in signiflcan ce ami
profundity next to Spinoza, hnt in fact was read by the young Spinoza and had a
euns~de,ra ble im pa ct upon th e question of nreresr to us: hum an or lgns. La
Pe~rerc s book was called Pre-Adamites an d raised the po ssibility tha t the Bible,
be ing frequentl y vague, and occasionally self-contradictory, might be compatible
with the idea th at there were people around befare Adam .
In parti cular, suggested La Peyr re, maybe the Bible is sim ply describing in
Genesis the creation of the .ancestors of the Hebrews, and maybe God ereated the
ances tors of other peoples independently and earlier, The importance of La
Pcyrere's book m ay lie simply in the fact th at it was pu blicly burned in Parls , and
36 refutation s of it were publishe d in the next few decades. CIearly it had touched
a nerve .
La Peyrer e's work has little valuc for th e m odern sch olar, except as having
p ublcly called into qu es tion for the first time th c litera l tr uth of the tradition al
account of the cre ation of Adam. Odd ly, La Peyrere's book would also be invoked
as a precu rsor of a very different , and uglier, idea- that the d ffcrcn t races of
pe ople were th e pro ducts of separate creative acts by Go d, and therefore h ad no
com mon biological hi story and should be con sidcred separate spec ies- an idea
caUcd po lygenism .
MONOGENISM
Takin g La Pcyreres argu ment fur ther than he did, one couId envision different
race s being th c p rodu cts of separate creatio ns. If so, then they were different in
th eir very essen ces and could not be con sid ered me mbe rs oft he same species. This
was an interpretation that was greeted with ent husiasm in the American South,
prior to the Civil War ; after all, f whites and blacks were not reaHy broth ers
b ologcally, th en slavery m igh t have a scientific argument to justify it. Whites
enslaving African s, in thi s view, would be dfferent in mag nitu de, bu t not in kind,
from human s domesticating cattIc.
But the term speces was begirmin g to take on a form al sense by 1700-no t two
io.divid uaIs who just loo ked similar, b ut rather, who were capa ble ofi nterbreeding
with each other. Th e implication s for understanding the hum an species were pro-
found. Clearly, h umans could interbreed , and were doing so all over the globe;
Euro pe an sailors h ad demonstrated that beyond reasonable doubt. By th at very
fact, th ey mu st b e considered a single species: and if the un its of Go ds creaticn
were speces, then all hu mans must have been the product of a single creative act.
Causeand Effect 27
The empi rical evidence for monogenism swayed the bulk of the scientlfic
community. especially in Europ e, by the mid- 1700s. Polygenism would enjoya
vogue in Ame rica just before the Civil War, but except for brief flare-ups at Harvard
(in the wor ks of Louis Agassiz in tb e 1870s and Rugglcs Gates in th e 1940s), it was
effectively dead .
that humans com priscd a single spccies and tha t the species had its origin in a
single crca tive act, one must still be str uck by th e physical diversity in the human
forro over the earth. People looked di fferen t frorn on e another; and f Adam and
Eve were white (the Ga rden of Eden being in the Near East), the n Africans an d
Asian s must have developed the ir divergent appearance over the course ofhuman
history. There fore, considerable physical change must be possible over th e spa n of
Biblical time.
-The dispu tation between the mo noge nists and polygen ists Is worth consde r-
ing becau se the intellectual battle lines were drawn in somewhat different ways
than seem familiar to us today. Th e mo noge n ists held that th e hum an speeies was
a single natura l entity, descended fro m an or iginal single p air of peop Ie. They
identfled that couple as Adam and Eve, taking the Bblc as litera lly true, an d used
that as an argument for the abolition of slavery. Thus, th ey were Biblical literalists
and socialliberals.
But they were also obliged, by taki ng th ose pos itions, to accep t the mu tab ility
ofhuman form and to develop explanation s of how bol ogcal stocks could cha nge
through time. Thu s, in addition to being Biblicalliteralists and soci al liberals, th e
monogenists were also the first evolutionists: m croc volution lsts, to be su re-
considering changes within speces, rather than transpec flc cha nge- bu t the first
modern evolutionists nevertheless. The oppos ition, polygenism, held that dfferent
races were the products of separate creat ons and h ad always been as th ey are;
thus, the y clung to a static creationist view of h uman or gns, invoked it odiously
to support th e institution of slavery, an d rationalized it with a modem, liberal
interp retation of tbe Bible.
CAUSE AND EFFECT
Thinking about th e un iverse as a machine-a power ful metaphor of the age-had
another effeet: getting ph iloso phe rs to think more rigorously abou t why things
happen at all. History, for exarnple, could be interpreted as "leading up to" th e
second comi ng ofChrist. But little ofhistory is thereby explained; if you want to
know why the Reman Empi re fell, or why th e Industrial Revolution occurred,
interpreting it in terms of th e second com ing of Christ will not get you very faro
Th ings h appe n for reasons in the im mcdiate pa st, not in the distant future.
What's true for h istor y is also true for ph ysics. A billiard ball moves because
of th e one that just hit t, not because of the one t's going to hit . This is especially
true if we adopt the Newtonian idea tha t the domain of science is the study of
pro xim ate cause. If there is an ultim ate cause for th e billiard ball moving-for
 28 CH A PT ER 2 WHERE D IO OUR SC I ENTIF I C I D EAS C OME FROM ?
example, the inten tion oE a billiards shooter-th at is not th e doman of ph ysics and
mechanics but of psychology
A Scottish philosopher of the eighteenth cent ury nam ed David Hum e exam -
n ed the ent ire concept of cause and effect in scienti fic reasonng and cond uded
that three things were needed to nfer that A caused B with any degree of rigor. The
first is sorne sort of physical contiguity of A and B, such as conta ct: the second is
that A mu st precede B; and the th rd is the cons tant conjunction of th e two, by
wh ich Hume m eant a regular pattern in wh ich A and B occur togeth er. Hum e was
obviously only inte rested in cause in the material world-the world of pro ximate
cause. and m atter an d m oton. His reasoning had dram atic consequences in biol-
ogy. however:
So
Why dd the worl d come into existence on the first day? tha t m an would
have a place to Iive on the sxth day.
Why do an imal, have th e features tha t they do ? 50 tha t they would be able
to survive where th ey live.
Why is m an gifted with the power of reason? So that when a d fficulty
ar ses, he can th ink his way throu gh it.
Each of the se questi ons contains a cause and an effect, but none satisfy Humes
criteria even rem otely. Mos t acut ely, they invert the necessary tim e relations
between a cause and an effect: some thin g on day 6 is th e cau se of something on
d ay 1; human reason is the re for its future use. This reasoning s teleological-
oc goal directed . A bullet has a goal in its trajecto ry-thc target at which it was
fired; a fertilized egg has a goal- the m atu rity, repr oducton, and senescence of
the organi sm oBut does h istory have a goal? Do things happen today in ard er to
unfold a plan for tomorrow? Or do things happen to day because of wha t happened
yesterdayl
Hu me wouId use th.e idea of causation to attack the popular liberal theology
ofhis age, which saw the han d of th e Deity in formi ng the world and its beings and
in giving them goa ls an d purposes for exstng. But as Brltan's most influenti al
phlosoph er; he wou ld set in motion the biggest doubts about the quality of these
ideas as scientific explanatio ns. Should not explanaton, about cause and effeet in
organic beings be framed in tangible , material, na tu ral terms, as the rest of m od -
em thought was clearly headtng! An d should not biological cause and effeet be
situated in history, with the past-c-nor the future -causing the pre sent ?
Abo ut th is tim e, too, what had forme rly been called "natural philoso phy" was
coming to be labeled by an oth er, newe r term-science.
THE GREAT CH AI N F BEING
Th e struc ture of the nat ural world was well understood in medieval times . [ust as
the social worl d ha d a linear hierarchy, with the King at th e top and noble me n,
kn ghts , and peasants below, so too did the natural world have a linear hie rarchy.
H~mans were obviously the pinn ad e of creation, and things that were similar to
The Great Chain of Bcing 29
humans were slightly below them, and so on, stretching down to lizards, fish,
and insects. The hand of God gave the species of the world th is patte rn : species
intergraded into one another to form a chain of perfe ction. It was obvious, it was
simple, and it was affirmed by everyday experlcnce.
Except that mayb e it was not so obvous . A Swed ish botanist-phy sician named
Carl Linnaeus set out to forma lize the relations among an imals, vegetables, and
mineral, and published a sm all pamph let in 1735 called TheSystem ofNature. Lin-
naeus's "system" involved terse nam es and de scriptons for each form of animal,
with an even mo re obvous. if previously u nheralded, structure: d ifferent spcccs
clustered int o group s, and groups of groups clustered as well. Thus, Hons and
tgcrs, being sim ilar to one another, could be seen as d fferent species belongng to
a common "arder " (which he called Ferae) whose members had shar p teeth and
claws. And th s "arder" was just one of severa1th at could be c1ustered into a larger
group of hairy, four-footed creatures th at nursed their youn g. which he called a
"class"- Quadrupedia. And th ese in turn c1ustered with brds, amp hibians, fish,
nsects, and worms n:o the Animal Kingdom.
The ncw pattern was even mo re obvious than the Great Chain of Being had
been, an d caught on nearly overn ight in the academic community. God Created, t
was said, but Linn aeus Arranged. But the se c1usterings-which we would now call
nested categor ies of equal rank-had an important consequenee in that th ey
obscured the Great Chain of Beng. Was there a sen se in which falcon s were really
supe rior to sharks? or deer were superior to falcons? or camels were superior to
deer! oc hyenas wcre supe rior to camel s?
Was ever y speces rankable in terms oftheir similarity to us? Perhaps Linnaeus
could m ore reasonably aggregate speccs in to restricted groups based on their
similarity to one anutller, and th en int o largcr groups of mor e re1axed sim ilarity.
What Linn aeus was dong here was applying a ra dical bologcal relativisrn to
the natur al world , tearing down the linear hierarchy of th e Great Cha in of Being
and replacing it with a hierarchy of a very d fferent kind-one wherein all specles
are equa l, and can be more meaningfull y arr anged in relation to one another than
in relation to an mag.nary tra nscen den t ideal: presu mably, usoThe reason we can
cal! it biological relativism is tha t it parallels ideas tha t developed in other intel-
lectual fields about th e equality of elements in a system for which nonequality had
long been taken for granted. In fact, maybe th e her editary aristocratic hier archi es
that had existed for centuries weren't so natural after all, and maybe life would be
better without them. By the late 1700s, revolutions in America and then in France
were promoting th e radical relativistie idea tha t all citizens were equal befare the
law and pe rhaps even that everyone was "crcated equal."
Somew hat latero of cou rse, anthropologists wouId come to appreciate th at like
citizens and speces, cultures can not be objectively ranked, exeept by narrow, arbi-
trary criteria-a position that th ey wou ld call "cultural relativism,"
And Linna eu s emphasze d the point by c1assifying the human species along
with all other an imal, from the very begin ning. By th e 1758 edton of The System
o/ Nature, humans were a single spec les (Horno sapiens), in contrast to a second
 30 C HAP TER 2 W H ERE DI D OUR SC I ENT IF IC I D EAS COME FR OM ?
spe cies (of Linnaeus' im aginatio n, un fortunately), Horno troglodytes (he genus
Horno was o ne of fou r genera in the a rde r Pr im ates (the other s being monkeys,
lernurs, and [m istaken lyJ bats; and th e Order Primates was o ne of several o rders
wit hin th e Class Mammalia.
BU FFO N ' S OBJECTION TO THE NESTED
HIERARCHY
Lnnaeus' genera l view of n atu re dom na ted the academ ic comm uni ty almost
im m ediately, and the h oldout s wer e few. One such holdout wa s a resp ected n atu -
ra list outside th e university set ttng. a wealt hy ndepend ent schcl ar who took th e
name of the town he owned, Bu ffon .
Count de Buffon wro te h is own su mm ary of Nature, a work published over
severa] de cade s in 36 volumes, ea lJed Nat ural History, General and Specific-one of
th e m ost wid ely read wo rks 01" the Fren ch Enlighten me nt in th e elghtcenth cen-
tury. In it, Buffon de scribes th e different kinds of an ima ls an d shows th em with
elaborate and beau tifu l woodcu ts. His picture of the gbbon, for example, is the
fir st in European literatu re.
His work was rad ical in its way. His th eo ry of the ea rth had it form ed by natu-
ra l me ans, tens of thousands of years ago-far more than the theology facu lty of
the Univer sity of Pars wouI d perm ito T hey fore ed him in 175 1 to retraet sorne of
his more heret ical notio ns abo ut earth history; naturalismoand "truth, "-showing
how sens itive theologians were already becoming to the difficulties in reeonciling
na tu re and sc r pture.
Unfazed, however, Buffon co ntinued to pu blish tho ughtful musing s on natu -
ra l hi sto r y with va rylng degrecs of radtcaln css. He argued cxplicitly for monogen -
sm, agai nst slavcr y, and for mi eroevol ution- and developed an esot eric th eory of
the effee t of food and the con ditio ns oflife on a spee ies' "Internal mold" to account
for it. Por Buffo n, th e task of the scientist wasn't just to organ ize and nam e thngs,
it was to cxp lain their relatlonshi p s: and Buffon saw c1assification as a ste rile enter -
prse if t is un accompanied by exp lanaton.
He was esp eeially tro ubled , howevcr; by sorne of the implications h e saw in
the Linnaean classificatio n. From comparative an atorrry, it was clear that the re was
a strong eorrespondence among the bod es of d ifferent anim als. One co uld, Buf-
fon no ted , convert the skelcton of a horse in to that of a human with minimal
effor t:
And f it s once admitted that there are families of plants and anmals, that the
donkey ls of the horse family, . . . then en e could equaIly say that man and ape
have had a common crigin like the horse and donkey. .. .
The naturalsts who establish so casual1y the families of plants and animals
do not seem to have grasped sufficiently th e full scope of these consequences,
which would reduce thc im m ed ate products of crearon to a number of ndvidu-
als as small as one might wish. Por ... if it were true that the donkcy were bUI a
Extinction 31
dcgenerated horse- then there would be no Iimits to the power of nature. One
would then not be wrong to suppose that she eould have drawn witb time. a11
other or gan zed bengs from a single beng.
. Buffon im m ed iately goes on to reject th e entir e entcrprise. In other words, he
rejects Linnaean c1assification because to him it implics macroevolut on, which he
kno ws cannot be tru e. The clustering ofeats and dogs and bears into a single group
must suggest, to him, the idea of com m on de scent. Par adoxically. Linn aeu s h im -
self never dre w that conclusin, and both me n remained lfelong creationists , nev-
er theless despising one anothe r. .
EXTI NCTIO N
By th e turn of the niaetee nth century, another set of da ta dem anded an exp lana -
tion. The last kno wn dodo, a large flightless bird found on ly on the island of
Mauritius, had b een scen in 1684. Had p eople (in th is cas e. Dutch sailors) d riven
it to extinct ion?
If so, th is crea ted a theol ogical problem. After all, the hand of God was evi-
dent in His work s o n earth , and one aspeet of His bo unty was to h ave po pulated
th e wo rl d wi th diverse fo rro s of lfe that co ul d b e a rr anged into a G reat Chain
of Being. If alm ighty God made a chai n, how coul d puny people de stroy one of
its links? lf pe opIe co uld realIy make species d isap pear, an d undermine God's
plan of creation , wrote a prominent naturalist in 1690. that would constitu te a
"dism em b'ring of th e un ive rse"-dearly no t som eth ing to be eonsidered lightly!
Alas, no more do dos turn ed up. They did not seem to be hidi ng anywhere-
no t on Ma uritius, nor in the rem otest pla ces pcoplc couId th ink of. There were jus t
no more do dos.
Apparently people could indeed make a species go ext inct. ,
T his obse rvation settled in ab out the sa m e time as another o ne carne to light.
T hc Indu strial Revolution neeessitated the construetion of large factories, and
buil ding large fac torics necessitated th e exeavation oflarge holes for foundations.
And excava ting larg e holes turned up foss ils.
Fossils had been known sinee the Renai ssance, and thei r id entity as form erly
living th ings had come graduaUy to be accepted. Suddenly it became elear tha t
thcre in deed exis ted lo ng ago a diverse fauna co mp rising anmals similar to, but
di stinct from , any living species in the p resent. Exti nc tion thu s became an unavoid-
able fact of the h istory of life on earth . But ho w to ma ke sense of it? What was
God's plan for extin ction?
Two prominent French biologists tried to explain It in differ en t ways in the
early 18005. T he frst, Iean -Baptiste de Lamarck, h ad a surprisingly sim ple and
elega nt expIanation. Lamarek argu ed th at species h ave a natural fit to th eir env-
ronments, but envi ronments change . When such a cha nge h appens, the organism
is faced with two options: either di e or ehange itself. He believed th at they cha nge
aceord ing to th eir need s, and that the ph ysica l altera tons they effeet are stab ly
 32 C HAPTE R 2 . W HERE D ID OU R SC IENTIF IC I D EAS COME FROM~
pass~d on to their ~ff~pring-a theory tha t carne to be known as the nnertance 01
acqured characterstics. Passing en the new body form to thc next gcneratio n
would result in the prod uction o a new species, one slightly imp roved upon its
paren t, and thus ene link h ighe r up on the Great Cha in of Reing. Th us extinction
was something of an illusion : new species succeeded older speces, but were actu-
ally descended from them .
Lamarck can be credi ted with pr oducing the first m odem theor y of macro-
evolu tion, the tr an sformation of one species into anothe r, or evoluti on aboye the
species level.
Georges Cuvier held a different view. He pointed out tha t the Great Cha in o
Being was pass , and by implication, any th eory that presupposed it could not hold
mu ch water. Building on Lin naeus, he argued th at.there were four kinds of ani-
~als, bu~~t o~ e~~ir.e ly di~ferent . bo dy plans: verteb rares, ''Articulata'' (inc1uding
insects), Radiata (lncludng anima ls with radial symmetry), and mollusks (with
shells) -and tha t no am ount of argu ment couId permit them to be linearly ranked,
for they were so different as to be non com parable.
Instead, Cuvier looked to the pattern s of geological history in which layers of
the earth appcar to have disti nct forms of lite with in the m and app ear to have clear
boundaries separating them frorn other ages, with ot her forms of Iife. Thi s sug-
gested not so much the tran sform aton of species into new species as enviren-
ments changed, bu t the wholesale replacem ent of diverso species alive at one time
by a different set of spec ies. Extinction, to Cuvicr, was real, an d whcn species died
out,.in, som e kn d of catastrophe, ne w spec es were forrned and took the ir place.
Cuvier's th eor y carne to be known as catastrophism, and although he forced the
s~holarly cor:ununity to recognize extinction as part of an increasing ly complex
vrew of the histor y of the earth, he nevertheless declined to speculare as to wh ere
the new sp cces carne from.
But Cuvi.er was essen tially the founder of modern vertebrate paleon tology,
and after Cuvier, one had to acknowledge that different species carne into exsrence
and pass ed out of existen ce at differen t times.
The Napoleonic Wars hind ered commu nication between English and French
scientists. In general, th e English were more pious th an the French and were more
preoccupied with trying to recc ncile the d ata of biology (Lamarck had coined that
term shor tly afrer the tur n oEth e 1800s) with Scripture. Th e French also tended
toward grand theoreti~al syn theses, while th e English were con temp tuous of
unythng that couldn't be directly scen or m easured. Consequen tly, when Cuvier
was tra nslated into English, the translator introduced the idea that th e mo st recent
catastrophe was described in th e Bible as Noah's flood, and th is introduction was
not noticed for many decades am ong Cuvier's English read ers. More over, it left the
~rench wi:h th e best u nder.stan ding of ancient life, but lacking the emp rlcal basis
m ear th history to m ake prop er sense of it.
. The English, for their part, were b usy obscr vng. experim enting, and measur-
mg-but lacked a coherent fram ework or even a philosoph ical approach for
understa nd in g it.
Natural Th eology 33
NATU RAL T H EOLOGY
When Charles Darwin was a student at Cambridge in the 18205, he was assigned
works of natural theology, an English bology mo vem ent designed to dem onstrate
the hand ofGod in the study of Nature. How did th ey do th is? By calling atten tion
to the wonders of the natural world an d challenging you to imagine how th ey
couId have com e about in the absence of God.
This God, however, was not th e Go d of the physicists, who set down mathe-
rnatical laws at the beginning uf tim e and the n stepped aside, but rathe r, a bu sy
craftsman , meliculously moldin g each specics in a dem onstration of both His lave
.and bounty, and of His ind ustry. just as physicists could study the m ind ofGod by
inferring regularity in natu re, bologsts could study it by observing diversity.
Imagine find ing a watch in the street, went the ir m ost famous argument; its Int ri-
cate omp lexity tells you that it was ma de by the hand of a elever craftsman, a
warchmake r, Now look at the human eye or an orchid. Doesn'r its intri cate
complexity speak as well of an intelligent designer-a benevo lcnt celestial presence
that m ade it come about?
But a series of devastating argume nts were already kno wn, having been for-
mulated first by the skeptical philosopher David Hume. Cons ider th e outline of
the shape of your home state. Is it not comp lex? Aside from Utah, Wyoming, and
Colorado, wh ch are simple geometric figures, all th e states are so complex that
they are hard to dra w accurately, and most are con sequently instantly recogniz-
able. And yet, they are not th e products of a heavenly statc make r! The y are th e
products of geological and politcal forces- complex forces operating over a span
of time, but understand able.
Th us, th e appearance of a com plex design doe sn't necessarily imply a
cons cious designcr behind it; the forces at work m ay be blind and undire cted, but
m ay be never theless understand able, and can pro duce a com plex desgn as well.
A parallel argument was mad e by an economist nam ed Adam Smith in his
book The Wealth of Nations (1776). A complex, efflcent economy, he argued,
dcvclops not th rough conscious controlled desgn, but spontaneously by th e
actio ns of people pursuing th eir individual interests. And such a system will tend
lo run as if guided by an "invisible hand,".he wro te. Things apparently couId com e
to exist without top-down creative control. And if econom ies could seem to exist
as f made and regulated by an invisible han d, was it such a stretch' to im agine
organs and bodies being sim ilar?
And what about the watch lying in thc street because it didn't keep good time and
was thrown there by a dissatisfied customer? If the existence of a lousy watch implies
a lousy watchmaker; doesnt the existence of impcrfections- such as degenerative ds-
ease, or baldness, or PMS, or birth defects, or acne- imply an ncompetent Creator?
Yet someho w, natural theologians were not about to criticize the work of God, which
shows that they were assumngHis properties and exstence, not deducing th em.
Thus, neither the observation oEorde r and structure, nor the analogy to the
attributes of a watch, are valid reasons to infer the wisdom or hand of God in
 34 C HA P T E R 2 WHERE DID OU R SC IE NTI FIC ID EA S C OME I'lZOM?
operat on, Go d might well exist, but He simply cannot be derived Irom the prop -
erties ofliving b eings on earth. T hose features cou ld have arisen by purely natural
me ans-whic h m ay be unknown , but are ultim ately knowable-c-unlke the actions
of God. As the earIy chemist Robect Boyle argued, in st umping for the New
PhiIo sophy-this sn t about what God can do ; t's about wh at Nat ure can do.
U NIF O RM ITA RIAN GEOLOGY
Extrapolating backward from the tim e of Iesus, piou s clcri cs had attempted to
ascertain th e time of Creation, given the fact tha t St. Luke's gospel pr ovd es th e
anc estry of [esus back to Adam . In 1642, Bishop ]nhn Lightfoo t calc ulated that
God had been at work at 9 am in 3928 BC ceeating th e un iversejand his calcula-
tion was revised in 1658 by Bishop James Ussher, who dct ermined that momen-
tous date actualIy to h ave been O cto ber 23, 4004 Be.
Buffon had spec ulated in th e mid 1l OO!' that the earth was considerably older
th an the few th ousa n d yeaes th e Bible sugges ts. But Eng lish empiricist science
wou ld come to m ake that even more lkely, with the maturation of geolog y in
the earIy nineteenth ceotury. The key figu re in th at pro cess was Charles Lyell, a
Scott ish geolog st, who publish ed a magi sterial th ree-volume sum rn ary and syn-
th esis of the field in the 1830s.
Lyell sought to reform geology by givin g it a m ore empirically rigoro us basis.
We do n't see miracles, reasoned Lyell, who was nevcr thel ess a very p ious ch urch-
man, and therefore we cannot invoke th eir effects in explaining earth h istory. As
scientists, we can only use th e forces we kn ow of, and can stu dy, to explain the
geolog ical patterns we encoun ter.
T h at raised a ser iou s problem for tradition al Bbl ica! chro nology. After all. the
processes we can see and measure, such as ero sin, act extrcmely slowly. Glacie rs
mov e, and leave tracks of the ir m ovement, but the y do so at a glacial pace. Th e
crosion of ccastllnes by c ceans , or rlverbed s, can be me asured, but th is invariably
yields results show ng very slow m ovem ent. Extrapolating backward, one can
calculate tha t th e proccsses th at pro duced thc effects we no w see mu st have been
going on for a ver y, very lon g tim e, far longer th an the 6,000 year s alIowed by the
Biblical chronology.
Lyells ap proach to geology carne to be known as unjorm tarianisrn, and
subs umed three related ideas: (1) tha t th e only typ es of process we can use to
understand earth histoey are th e ones we see in op eration today; (2) th at we can
only invoke the magnitu de of th ose processes tha t we scc in operat ion today; and
th at (3) th e ear th was consequently very old , so old th at it was h ard to see when it
began. and hard to project when it might end-it jus t cyeled on , with mi no r
perturbation s, beyond the human grasp of time. Th e first idea preeluded hypo-
thetical cata strophic events, such as come tary Impacts, from playing a m ajor role
in th e exp lanation of earth hi stor y. the secon d preclud ed hypothetical events such
as wo rldwide oods-. floo ds were occ asonelly sever c, but they were local, and not
worldw ide, and the third wa s th e logica l consequence of th e first two.
Adam's World 35
Suddenly the ageof the ea rth was opened up , and geology had sorne br eathing
room . Species had time to live, to develop. an d to die ou t; and geologica l proc esses
had a rock-sold em pirical foundation. LyeU's work would have a majar rnpresson
upon the young Charles Darwi n, sailing around the world in the HM S Beagle as it
was being publishe d.
ADAM'S WO RLD
Th is still left one thorrry problem for anyon e interested in incorporatin g human s
ntc th e h istor y of life on earth. Th e ear th seemed to be old, and display ed a su c-
ccsson of fauna s: dno saur s at one stage and saber-tooth tiger s and mammoths at
another. Whe re did hurnans fit in ?There was cert ain ly n o evidence to suggest tha t
they Iived am ong th e dnosaurs. Hu mans were clearly geolog icallyvery recent, and
din osaurs very ancie nt.
Natural th eologians coyly reconciled earth history and human hi story by
interpret ing th e formation of the an imals by God as recorded in G nesis to be
specifically the formatio n of modern animals. What th e Bible relate s, they rea-
sone d, is th e creation of th e m odero world, prepa red by Go d for Adam and Eve in
Ede n, loaded up with the an imals and plants that we see now. Prio r to that was an
archaic world, a prernodern world, filled with th e remote and un fam iliar creatu res
of paleo ntology.
Th is, however, was beginnng to have problems as well. All over Europe,
ancie nt rernains of cxtinct mammals were be cc m ing known and wer e inferred to
have been par t of th e pr cm od ero world, before the Garden of Ede n. Yet just as
ancient geologically as thes e mammals weee chipped rock tools, known as eoliths,
or "daw n stones" Since humans were th e only spec ies known to sha rpen th e edges
of rocks ro ma ke cutting tools out of th em, it followed that these tools were made
by sorne forro of primtlve peo ple. Were they "pre-Adam ites," or wer e the y mo deen
peo ple in a mo dero worId who existed since the Garden ofEden?
Many scientists favored the Iatter view sin ce it removed the teleological rea -
soning implied by seeing a modern worId crea ted as simply the planned precond.i-
tion for the appearance of humans. One could ins tead see th e h istory of life
intcrtwin ing with th e history ofhuma ns, as an cient Ife unfold ed into modern life,
and archaic hum ans into modeen humans. It couId be seen as a history, a develop -
me nt, an evoLution.
Cha rles Lyell, h owever, wasn't among those scientists. Alth ough he was th e
champion of uniformitariani sm , and had sett lcd the issue on the age of the earth ,
he was con servative enough the ologica Uy not to be able to imagine tool-makin g
hum an belng s living alongstdc exti nc t forms of life. The evidence, he felt, was just
insu fficient to settl e such a crucial issue. In the 18505, a series of careful archaeo-
logical excavation s showed incontroverti bly th at Lyell's po sition was no longe r
tenable. Th e too ls were n ow being found with th e bones of extinct an imal s, along-
side thcm, scattered among them, and in cIear associ ation with th em . Sorne form
of h uma n had lived and chipped sto ne too ls on a premodero earth , filled with
 36 C H A P TE R 2 \\'H ERE D I D O UR SCIEN T IFrC ID EAS C O ME FRO M? References an d Purth er Readi ng 37

un familiar creatures, long before Adam and Eve and the Garde n of Eden on the 1600 1800
! !

j jDL
modern earth.
1
11 LinLu,
Lyell hirnself reluctantly acknowledged it was true.
Copcrncus
vesalus Buffon
Newton
HUMAN EVO LUTIO N Hu me Lye1t
Spino za 1
Descart es Tyson Lamarck
Th e earl y evolutionary theory of Lamarc k was highly speculative and ver y boldo La Pcyrerc Cuvier
Lamarck not on ly applied his theor y of acquired characteristics and evolution "up
the great chai n" to animals, but he explicitly recogni zed that it might apply to Figure 2.1. TImeline of major scholarly works d iscussed in th is
humans as well. Clearly, the mo st similar animals to humans were the apes; couId chap ter.
we imagine such a transition from ape to person ? Lamarck had written tha t indeed,
we co uld, in his Zoological Philosophy (1809): . Vestiges was scorned widely by scientists thro ughout its publication history,
If so rne race of four- handed an mals, cspecially one of the mo st perfeet of thern,
although it was widely read. Its author was vilifiedfor his ignorance and for hs heresy
were to lose, by force of circumst ance or some other cause, the habit of d imbing by the experts. Ifthe author's identity had bccome known, it would have made him a
trees and graspi ng the branches with Its feet in a rde r to ho ld on to them, and ifthe laughingstoek and destroyed his career. So if anyone elsc out there was harboring
indvid uals of this race werc for ced fo r a ser ies of g e n l. ~' . ; : [. l OS to use their feet on ly similar ideas about the transformation of one species into another, or "the develop-
Ior walking and to give up usn g thelr feet like han ds, thcrc is no doubt , . . that ment hypothesis" (as it was known), he would do well to keep them to him sclf.
these fo ur-hand ed animals would at lengt h be transfor m ed in to two-handed and
that thc th umbs on their feet wou ld cease to be sepa rated fro m th e ot her digits. REFER ENC ES AND FU RT HER REA DING
Furt hermore, f they ... were im pelled by thc desire to command a large
and ds tant vew, and he nce trie d to stand up right, and continually adop ted that Appel , T. 1987. The Cuvier-Geoffroy Debate : French Biology in the Decades Before Da rwin.
habit fro m gene ra tlon to gen eraton, ther e s agan no doubt that thei r feet wo uld Ncw York: Oxford Unive rs ity Press.
grad ually acquire a shape suitable for supp ort ing th em in an erect postu re. Lastly, Buffo n, Cou nt de. (1 744 - 1788) . Histore Na turelle: Gnrale et Particuli re. htt p://www.
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to us e them only for chew ing , therc is again no dou bt that .. . thcl r snout would Darw ins Views on Hum an Evoluti on . Ne w York: Houghton Mifflin H arcou rt.
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Cham bcrs. He spoke and corr esponded with man y scientists, and read widely; and Gould. S. J. 1984. Adam's nave l. Natural History 93 (6):6-14.
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Origin ofSpecieswould go theough 6 editions and seUooly 9,500 copies in its fiest Livingstone, D. 2008. Adam ~ A neestors: Race. Religion, and th e Polities of Huma n Origins.
ten year>, i859- 1869.) Baltimore, MD : Johos Hopkins University Press.

40 C H A PT E R 3 . C AN YO U T EL L I F YO U Jo. n F. A DA RWI N IST?
M~reover, there was an unpleasantly un scientflc sense to the way in wh ich
th s th eory wrestled with the fit of organ isms to th eir env ironm en t. Taking the
Biblical na rrative at face value , one wou ld have to cnvision pe ngu ins an d polar
hears, adap ted te cold we ath er, alongsde camel s and scorpions, ad apted to hct
weather. Assuming for the sake of argument that the ark landed somewhere in
west Asia, such as Armenia or Turkey; it was diffieu lt to imagine how those differ-
ently adap ted kin ds of an imals eouId have gotte n to whe re the y n ow live, and are
well-suited to, without going through a prolonged period of m alad apt ation in get-
ting there, wh ich they would most certainly not h ave su rvived ! Th is was, of course,
a classically teleological explanation-the ani mals were adapted to where they
were destined to end up , no t to where they presumably were. An 4 it was seen as
highly problematic on th at basis.
Darwin was intri gued by th e relation ships between the extinct fossils h e col-
leeted in Sou th Ame rica and the sp ecies he saw there alive-and between the liv-
ing an im als in different Sout h Am erican clima tes. For exa mple, Darwin kn ew that
hor ses in the New World had been brou ght thcrc by thc Spanis h: but he found
evidence th at esse ntial1y modern horses had been in digenous to the New World
an d had gone extinct thousa nd s of years ago. "Certainly it is a marvelou s even t in
the history of animals," h e later wro te, "that a nat ive kind should have disappeared
to be succee ded in after ages by the countless herds introduced by the Span ish
colonist!"
Ano the r fact tha t impressed him was a fossil glyptodont, a large extinc t an imal
covered in arm or lke an armadillo. Glypt od on ts were known on ly from the south -
ern part of the New Worl d. Armadillos were known on ly from th e same reglons.
Migh t t be me aningful that two such uniquely sim ilar kin ds uf mammals would
be found togethe r, an d no wh ere else? And th e an imals to which they were in turn
m ost sim ilar-sloths and capybaras- were also found in th e sanie arca. Was th is a
m iracle, or the sgneru re of an un kn own, bu t nter estng, na tural pro cess?
Natural theology waved away this issue by saying that God, in His wisdo m,
created animals to be adapted to ther sur round ings. One could, of course, thereby
prcdict that Sou th American stepp es would have th e same kind of an imals as West
Asian steppes-yet they do n't. They seem lo have d fferen t kin ds of anim als
adapted in different ways to similar environ ments. Ikewise with th e animals of the
South American and Centra l African rain forests. Further, given th at the islands of
an arch ipelago , like the Galpagos, are a1l environmentally ver y sim ilar, it is not at
all clear, under th is th eory, why similar animals should diffcr in form slightly fro m
island to island.
It seemed that geographicaI proximity and histo ry, not crude environment al
similarity, be st correlated with the distribution of btologcal resemblan ces among
foss il and livin g sp ecies. Darwin wrote in his iournal 01Researches, later kno wn as
The Voyage 01the Beagle, in 1839 : "This wonderful relationsh ip in the same conti-
nent berween the dea d and th e living will, I do not doubr, hereafter throw mo re
light on th e app eara n ce of organic beings on ou r earth, an d th eir di sappearance
from it, tha n any oth er c1ass of fact s,"
Darwns Argument 41
DARWIN' S ARGU ME NT
Darwn returned frcn his voyage on October 2, 1836. and reestab lishe d con tact
with th e leading holegists of the age, who studied the specimens he h ad collected.
He wrotc several books and monographs and developed a reputation as an eble
and compete nt bologst h mself .
By lhe mid-ISts, Darwin had satsfied hmself that there was a way lo explan
these biogeographi c questions and other diverse issues in ~io~ogy. The key layo In
the writings of a social scientist, Thomas Malthus. In hs Essay on Populatwn
(1798; Darwin read lhesecond edton of 1802), Malthus had observed that people
regula rly out repro du:e th eir sub sistence ba se. The result was compettion, or wh at
Malthus called a "struggle for exstenc e" And if you thought the present was bad,
thc future would on lf be worse, given the high repr oductive rate of the poor. Mal-
thus eailed for sexual abstinen ce (after a11, that was where bables carne from ), and
the den ial of assistarce to th e poor (wh ich wouId only permit them to have more
babes, wh ich wcre, lS he saw it, th e hea rt of the problem).
Dar win acceptc Malthus' arg ument of a struggle for existence but wonde red
why it should onlyapply to humans. After all, don't m.ice and d rago nflies a~d
sharks multiply fasterthan their food supply as well, leading lo a struggle for exrs-
tence in th em t And at all stages of the life cyele, the re are far more cockroaches
tha n can possibly maltiply satisfacto rily. O nly a sma ll proportion of them actua~y
do leave descend ams . Perh aps, then, sorne invisible han d selects th ose who will
leave descendants, out of the m any possibilities. An d if th ose "selected" to repro-
duc e prcfere ntially are no t perfectly aver age representatives of the ir gro up. t~e
sec on d gene ration wlll appear to differ slightly fro m th e fi rs~. Th us Darwl.n
tran sforrncd Mnlthus's conservative and static so cial agenda mto a dynam ic
bolog cal une.
To support his idea, Darwin spoke to real-lfe selectors, animal .b reede~s '.He
k.new that th eir predecessors had created dverse breeds of dogs and pigeons m just
a few thousand yean , Could not the hand ofnatu re mimic th e hand of the breeder,
although wit h less intensity and over untold mo re generatio ns, and th~s act a,s a
"natur al" selector? :t wou ld 00 1y require th e enviro nmen t to deter m ine whic h
traits were better, ard therefore wh ich anima ls sho uld be favore d in the struggle to
survive and reproduce. The result would be something like the diversification of
the dachshund , Great Dane, terrier, spanel, bulldog, and Labr ad or Retriever from
one anothe r- on ly vri t large, over th e whol e history of life. An d the faet is, if we
d dn't kno w that th cse do mestic stocks were all descended from a common ances-
tor, we would probably classify them as diffe rent species and genera beca use the y
are so dfferent fron one another!
Da rwin named th s hypothetical proces s "natural selectton" juxtaposing it
against th c "artificial selection" of the breeder-although of cou rse the "ar tificial"
selection process wes in fact the only one that was known to be real. Purther, Da r-
win didn't postulatethe existence of any conscious selective agen t for the "natural"
selection process-c-rather, it proceeded as ifthere were an invis ible hand guiding it.
 42 C HA PT ER 3 . CAN YOU T ELL I F YOU ARE A DAR\ l I NI Sn
The st ru ctu re of h ts ar gu me n t boils clown to con necting a simp le se ries o f
obscrvat ions and inferen ces. In the flrst pl ace, organisms rep rodu ce more than
th eir res o urces read ily pe r m it th em to, leading to th e "str uggle for existen ce"
deduced by Ma lth us . Since all p opulations consist of variable membe rs with
slightly different features, and those features are often under sorne hereditary
co n tro l, it foll ows that the pa rticular featur s of th ose individu als b est su ited
to th eir conditions of life wll predominate in successive gene rations. The
resu lt would th ereby be a tra nsformation of the p opulaton th rough time in
which specc desce nd ant population s diverged fro m thei r ance stor s, and
from oth er de sc endant po p ula tions, in way s that fit them to th eir local envi-
ronments. Ext rapolated ov er the vastn ess of geologtcal time, th e imp lication
was th at all lfe was gcnealogically conne c ted. th e prod uct of exren sive "descent
with rno dfca t on, "
Recognizing that hi s ideas wouId be controversial, Dar win set ab out to am ass
an insurmountab Ie qu antity of data in sup port of hi s argu me nt, and to convince
his fric n ds in the scho larly commun ity. H s han d was forced, however, when h e
receive d a manuscript from a colIeague h e had never me t, a young naturalist
named Alfred Russel Wallace, detailing th e same basic ideas as a res ult of his own
reflecti on on wh at h e had seen of th e anim als in the Malay archipelago. Da rw in
cansulted with friends , who arranged foc h imself and Wallaee to present pap ers
join tly in 1858 at the Linnaean Society. Then he ru shed to get his ide as in to p rint.
T he book was published on November 24, 1859, as On the Origin ofSpecies by
M C(i." ~ of N atural Selecton . or the Preser vaton of Favored Raees in the Struggle for
Life. I'he first print ing suld out th ar day. It was, in th e words of bologist Ernst
Mayr, "ene long argument, "making three baste p oin ts:
There exists heritable var iation between in dividuals in any population.
The n ature of the environment cau ses so rne individu als to survive and
reproduce mo re successfulIy than others.
Th is ehanges the composition of the populat ion in late r generatio ns, as suc -
ceed ing generation s of the populatcn take on th e cha racteristics of its
repro ducing m em bers.
WHERE PEOPLE FIT IN
Da r win recognized that th e most contentious implication ofhis theories wouId be
to remove the human species fro m the direct rnagc of Go d and situate it zoologi-
caIly among the primates, whe re of eou rse Linnaeus had placed it aver a cen tu ry
earlier. The diffcren ce. h owever, was th at Lin naeus was simply describi ng a pa ttern
of rcscmblan ces. "."h ile Darwin was ostensibIy talking abo ut historical origi ns- as
in deed Buffon had fcared pe opl e woul d .
D ar win , however, so ught to defuse that bomb by coyly refu sing to deal with
humans in the book. The o nly m en tion our species gets is in th e th rd-to-last pa ra-
graph, when Darwin tells us, "Light wll be thr own on the origin of m an an d hts
Where People Eit In 43
history " In the last edition, Darwin felt sec ure eno ugh to expa nd on tha t th ough t,
and he mo difled the single m ention to, "Much light will be th rown on th e origin
of man and his histnr y"
Darwin also wrote at a time when th e British had ou tlawed slavery a genera-
tion earller, and th e Ame ricans were about to fight a Civil War. The monogenist
position (chapter ~) was the more morally respectable one, for it seemed m ost
compatible with the abolitio nist position-we are all on e kind, and it is not right
to enslave one of your own . 1t was a1so the position of Biblicalliteralism , which
could trace all pecple b ack to Adam and Eve. The po lygenist po ston, however,
had some thing going for t as well. The polygen ists h eld that that dfferent r aces
were th e pro ducts of separate creaticns, of wh ich the Bible onl y relates the last one,
that of Adarn and Eve, presumptve ances tors of the local pop ulations of the Near
East. The earlier orgins of other ra ees were simp ly not th ere in th e Scrip tures . This
implied two oth er th ings: tha t the Bible could not be taken literally at face value
and was subject to considerable int erpretaticn , which was attrac tive to skeptieal
inte Uectuals; and that the ear th was far older tha n th e Bible seeme d to indicate,
which was pre cselr what geology and archaeology were showin g. One of Darwlns
cultural contributions, then, was to harmonize the moraUy respec tab le position,
na mely, aboli tion (an d hi s familywere in deed ardent aboliti on ists), with th e scien-
tiflcally respectable position , namely, th e an tquty of the ear th an d th c human
specics, 111 ot her words, wc a1l em erge from a corn mon ances tor, but th at stock is
not Adam, but a scrt-of ch impanzee.
One member of Darwns circle was an anatomist who , Iike Darwin and Wal-
lace, h ad m ade a scientific reputation upon returning from a sea voyage: Thomas
Huxley. Shor tly beore ts official pub licati on da te, Huxl ey received a copy of The
Orgin of Species from Dar win . Alth ough he had sorne qu ibbles with it, h e wrote
h is friend back imn ediatel y: "1fin ished your b ook yeslerday . . . And as lo th e curs
whic h will bark and yelp-you must recolleet that sorne of your friends at any rate
are endowed with in amount of comb ativene ss which (though you have often &
justly rebuked it] may sland you in good slead- I am sha rpening up my claws and
beak in readiness"
Huxley was already involved in a very n asty public dispute with the d stn-
guish ed an atom ist an d pale ontologist, Richard O wen, over the simil arity b etween
the ape's brain and ours. Huxley m aintain ed th ere was no difference in ba sic forro,
just in size; Owen mslsted th at the h uman bra in had a particular reglen, th e h ip-
pocampus minor, th at the apes brain laekcd . Darwns work would mesh hicely
with th at.
The British Associatio n for the Adva nceme nt ofScie nce organized a debate at
Oxford Un iver sity in 1860 so th at th e foIlowers of Darwin couId eonfro nt, and be
eonfronted by, th eir crit ics. O ne critic, a frie nd of Rich ard Ow en, was Sam uel Wil-
berforce , Bishop oOxford. At the end ofhis presen tatlo n, the story goes, he sar-
castically asked Haxley whether he thought he was related lo the apes on hi s
grandfathe r's sde or h s grandmothe r's side. Given the choice, repled Huxley,
between "a mi serable ape for a grandfather" or a elever ma n who would use his
 44 CHAP T ER 3 CA N YO U T ELL I F YOU A RE A D A RW I N IST?
gifts of wisdom and speech in the servicc ofignorance an d prejud ice, "I unhesitat-
ingly affir m rny pr eferencc for the ape"
Huxley him self wo ulc .oritc thc first book on human cvolution in 1863, Man's
Place n Nature. Ou r place is. as Ln naeus noted, amo ngst the prim ates, and more
sp ecifically amongst the apes; but now, Hu.xley argues . we are dr iven in escapably
to recogn ze that pla ce as being the conse quence of an int imat e biological history
that we share with th e apcs .
THE SACR IF ICE
A new international gen era tion of biologists rallied ar ound Darwinism and
expanded on the new biolo gical ideas. Asa Gray in Am rica, Huxley and oth ers in
England , and Ern st Haeckel in Germ any all wrote extcnsivcly in favor of the new
biological ideas.
Haeckel in part icular develop ed a single scheme cncompassing th e biological
evolution from amoebas to people, an d continuing on to link the tra nsform ation
of species to the rise ofhuman race s an d the em ergence and domn ation of pclit i-
cal states. In other words, he saw the evolution of hu m an s as a rise from the apcs.
the evolution of Eu ropeans as a rise from the oth er kind s of people, and reachin g
its zen ith with the Ar yan state.
Rudolf Virchow, on the other ha nd , the m ost emine nt biologist and publ ic
nt ellectual In German y, th ought that evolu tion did not call for the rise of racist
milit ari st na tionalism and consequen tly took exception to Haeckel's view of evolu-
tion. Haeckel's resp onse was tellin g: he claim ed to speak for evoluti on, an d If you
did n't hu y the whole package, then you were antievoluron. Virchow dd not buy
the wh ole pac kage, and by th e terms of th e argum en t, he becam e an opponent of
evolution . W hen the fossils of Iava Man were discove red in 1891, Virchow would
refu se to accept th em as human ancestors . why! Because to ad mit th em as evi-
de nce for evolution wou ld have been to accep t them as evidence for th e politlca l
part ofHa eckel's evolu tion ary program, wh ich was far worse.
After Virchow's death, Germ ans did tend to see evoIution just the way Haeckel
outlined It. Tb s, oEcourse. was the evolu tion ary view that the Nazis wouId later
adop t. Vlrchow's d vorce of bolo gcal evolution from socia l and political forms,
how ever; was picked up by h is you n g German prot g , who wo uId em igra re to the
Un itcd States in the 18905. and ultim ately be responsible for profe ssionali zing aca-
demic anthropology in America-Franz Boas.
But Darw n 's first -generation advocates were a11 faccd with a problem when
dealing with human evoIutio n-there was virtua11y no fossil evdcn cc for it. A
single sk ull from Gibraltar that we wouId now c1assify as Neande rtal, had been
found in 1848; an d th e epo nymous skull from the Neand er vallcj- in Ger man y was
discovered in 1857. But the Gibraltar skull had not attra ctcd much attenton, and
it was anyo nes guess what the Neande r skull was. And yet to link ape and human
gen ealogically, you p resumably required something to brand ish at th e tradit ional-
sts as an intermed iate form o
Implications for Species 45
The y soIved tks problem by reviving aspects of an oIder theory, the Gre at
Chan of Being. Ruher tha n ranking living bein gs as hgher or lower th an one
another. now it mi ght be "more or less evolved." So where were th e mi ssing transi-
tonal for ms be tween person and ape? Actually, th ey're there, said th ese fir st -
generation Darwinans-e-the no nwhite peoples of th e world grade into the ape on
one end and int o the European on the other. Even Thomas Huxley, in arguing for
the cont inuity bet veen th e ape's b rain and the European's brain, wou ld invoke
the Afr can's brain 15 an inter m ediate formo
The slander vas famili ar, as Rober t Chambers had said as mu ch in 1844's
Vestges 01 Creation and preevolutio nary writers had for decad es very casually
drawn Africa ns as "in berween" Europeans an d apes, so the magc itsclf was a
familiar one. But tre Darwinians were in a war with an ear lier, prem od ern bo -
loglcal comprehendo n of the place of h um ans in the natural arder; and so th e full
humaoi ty of nonwnite peo pIes wouId be sacr ificed. Th at would turn out to be a
hard idea to unIoa d from evolutionary th eory, as well.
IM P LI CATI O N S FO R PAT T ERN
The most mrned a e result of the Darwinian revolution was tha t it explain ed th e
pattern in nat ure ttat Linn aeus had d iscern ed over a hundred years earli er. Species
cluster ed togethe r into genera because th ey shared a recent intimate biological his-
tory; gen era clustered into fam ilies because Ihey shared a more remate common
ancestry, and so OL
Where earler evolut ionar y theorles, such as Lamarcks, had worked with in
the fram ework of the Great Chain of Being, there was no way to fit the obser ved
patter n (the nested hierarchy) to the evolutionary process. Suddenly, in Darwtns
work, it a11 beca me clear-for Darwns theory incor po rated the divergence ofspe-
cies from one anceher. "1 am fuIly convnced, " he wrote , "that species are not
im mu table; but thet tho se belong ng to what are caUed the same genera are line al
descendants of san e ot her and generally extinct speccs, in th e sam e manner as
the acknowledged rarieties of any one spe cies are the descendant s of th at species "
Dar win has here not onIy groun ded Ln naeus' hierarchy in an underlying
evolution ary process, bu t he has also linke d the production of new breeds or vari-
eties of an rnals-c-evoluton below th e species level, or microevolut ion-to th e
produc tion of new species-evolution aboy e the species lcvel, or ma croevc luton .
IM PLI CATI O N S FOR SP ECI ES
Much of m od ero sc ence is concerned with freeing itself from an ancent philo-
sophical stance known as essentialism . Th is was first formuIated by th e Greek phi -
losoph er Plato in h s "Allegor y of the Cave" in Book 6 of The Republie. Imagine. he
sug gests, that you are a pri son er chained to a rock in a cave. You cannot see out-
side, but th e fire casts ever-changng shadows on the wall. Since you cannot see
outside, you do no: k.now what is cau sing tite shadows, and for aUyou know, th ey
 46 CHA P T E R 3 C A N YOU TEL L I F Y U A RE A DA RW IN IST?
ar~ all t he re Is. But in fact, says Plato, the shadows are eaused by sorne people or
thmgs. that are outsi~e of you r direct perception - thei r flickerin g, dancing, and
ch angmg sha pes are illu sory, Th ey are sirnply forms caused by real things ou tside.
An d your job as a sch olar s to see th rough th e app arent variati on uf the world of
for rns, to th e underlying un iformity in th e wo rld of essenccs-the things of wh ich
the shadows are sirnply pal e copies.
. ~is stu dent Ari sto tle appll ed th is to biology, argui ng that th e basts of a species
lay In just such an essence-a tran scendent.ideal that cxsted, perhaps, in the mi nd
of God. All ear thly repre sentatives of a spe cles were simply for ms , like those sha d -
ows on the cave wall. Th e task of the biologst , th en, would be to see beyo nd th e
-iverse variations th at exist in a species an d try to imagine wh at the ideal form, th e
essence, of that kind of animal would be.
. ~he pro bIen: is that this approach subvert s th e empi rica l basi s of knowlcdge.
It invtes you to Ignore what you can see, and to ima gin e what you cannot see -
an d defin es the im aginar y par t as th e tr ue reali ty. The var iati ons that are part of
the world of our exp erience are here dismi ssed as mere imp erfections, or as degen -
eracy fro m the ideal.
Naturalists had, by 1700, begun to recon cept ualize spec es fro m "anim als that
look alike and partake of a eom mon essence " to "anim als th at can reprodu ce
tog ether and share a corn m on histcr y" But th ese weren't necessaril y incompatible;
one could still imag ine th e "idea in the mi nd of God" upon whi ch those rea l ani-
mals who could reprodu ce toget her were based. An d another im p ort ant implica-
tion of Da r win's work, then , was to stand the old view on its h ead.
Jf we acecpt th at a species is re ally abo ut reproduetive eompatib ilitv, th en th e
"essence'~ or ~d~al " that thcy all shnr e is irrelevan t, More than th at, it ,.. imaginary,
The rcality hes 10 the varlat ons thernselves, the d ifferen ces amon g the animals
withi n a species. Thes e ar e the qualities that allo w an ani ma l to survive an d to
reprodu ce in th e face oE eo mp etit ion from other members of th e species. Conse-
quentIy, the variations should be studied-c-for the y are real and important-and
the underlying invaran t "essenc e" is actual1y n either important, nor oven rea l.
' Ve ~ll ~ncounter esse n tiaIism in various guis es through out the stu dy o
hu m an diversity, for exampl e, in th e study of gen der and ra ce (in which you may
be .d e~ned ~Y a ~in~le as.p ect of you r ancestry or m akeup, which infuses your
en tre identity with Im agm ar y prop er ties), an d in the Human Genome Project
(wh ere the basis of being human wouId be irna gined to reside within a single
genetc represen tative). This of cou rse is a testim ony to the p owe r of Plato and
Art srotle in shaping European thoush t. For present purposes, we can j ust ob serve
that shaking off hvo m illennia of IT1ctaph)'sical speculation abollt sp ecies in favor
of an empirical, real-worl d appToach was a m ajor advan ce in biology: another con -
tribution of Darwin's.
. !he m odeen conce pt ofspecies builds on th is distinc tion. 1t teHs us th at a spe-
eles IS not a group, or a set , in wh ich membership is defin ed by the poss ession of
certain features. Rath er, a sp ecies is an individ ual (like an organism ol' a ceU), com-
posed of parts that sta nd in a sp ecific pa ttern of relation ship to one another. Th at
Implcatons for Biological History 47
relationship ls participation in a common reproductive com munity, yielding the
abllity lo share descen dants. In the same way th al yonr body is composed of cells,
and you don't th ink of your cells as "members" of your body; but rather as your
bo dy's orga n izcd subunits, we no lon ger th ink of orga nisms as "rn embers" of a spe -
eles, but, rathe r, as "parts" of a species. (However, we do occasio nally lapse and
articulate it th e oldway.) This s a genealogical, evolutiona ry, and h ierarchical con-
cept of a spectes.
IMP LICATI ON S FOR BIOLOGICAL HI STORY
Dar win ism also erplaned th e cause and effect of adaptation in a way that m ade
sense in the mode-n scientific sense of th e times. Granted that species are a?apted
to their surroundings, how dld that come to be?-especi ally ifthey all started out
in Noah's ark!
Darwin again reversed the traditional way of th inking about the problem .
Rather than thi nking of organisms in Noah's ark as bult to su rv ive where they will
end up - their future circumst ances d ictating th eir present structu re- Darwin ism
explai ned con tcmporary adaptation in term s of th e sur vival and proli feration of
ancestors living ir. th e d srant pastoThus, it is a th eory of biologic al history, n ot of
biolog ical teleology (in which the end, or lelos. de termi nes the present state).
Th is s a far more satisfactory kind of explanation, for philosophical re asons
that ha d be en developng for two hundred years, as we h ave already seen .
Th is helped establish Darwini sm as a more scientific alternat ive than any of
its competing theores. Even the early evolutionary theory of Lamarck, whic h saw
evolution as an "unfclding" in whic h species responded to ecological pressure by
climbing one link up the Great Chain, was still teleological in th at the str uctu re of
the Great Cha in v as not of th is ear th. It was som eth ing presumably Iocated in the
mind ofGod. The future state (the next link on th e Chain) is wha t determn ed th e
presen t state, whch s not the way th ings seem to happ en.
Da rwi nism , 'iowever, affords a d ifferent view. Lfe is no t heading towa rd the
nex t link, bu t merely toward su rvival. Th us, at any time, you are a produ ct of th e
past, not a slavc of the future . You are what you have inh er ited from your ances-
tors, not wh at YOJ will pass on to your desc en dants. After all, you definitely had
an cestors, but yon may not have descen dants!
Darwinism va s th us a the ory in wh ich not only was there a deep h istory of
life, but a deep history ofhum an life as well. Th ere was n o kno wable future, only a
kn owable past. ltwas that pa st th at shaped the way we are today; an d it is th e way
we are today and he conditions we will face that aCfect wh at we will become. Thus,
it no longer mad scientific sense to speak of a "bio logical destiny" Ol' a "nex t step"
in human evolution.
One still comm on ly hears th is assumption, however-for example, in th e
question, "Wh at w\ll the person of the future look like?" This question assumes
tha t th e future is with in us, and only needs to be teased out; and th at response to
environ m ental pressures (which we can no t fores ee) is irrelevant to answering . We
 48 CHA PT ER 3 CAN YQU T ELL IF YQ U A R E A DA RW IN IST?
will see later how a modero approach to evoluti on mght fram e an answer to that
question. For present purposes, we can simply note that Darwinlsm historicizcd
biology and replaced an old er teleological explanation for adaptaton with an his-
torca l one,
IMP LI CAT IO N S FO R RELATING HUMANS
T O OTHER AN IMALS .
Hurnans have always related thernselves to the anmals. Sorne ofthe earliest art, for
examp.le, sc~ms to depct half-hum an, half-an imal figures . Mythologies univer-
sally grve an m als human charaeteristics and teach us how we can become more
seIf-aware when we atten d to th ose tra its. In European literature , th ~ ma ster of the
genre was Aesop, wh o wr ote in 500 BC abou t the eviI wolf, th e honorable mouse,
~he jea lous raven, an d the c1ever m onkey, not to rnen tion the wolf in shecp's clot h -
mg, th e race bet ween th e tort oise an d th e hare, and the goose that laid golden eggs.
In n:odern cultu re we know, among many oth ers, the smart-aleck bu n ny ("Bugs"),
the Irascibl e duele ("D on ald"), and the sly, if un lucky, coyot e ("Wile E:').
The idea ofblu rri ng the houndary betwe en hu m an an d animal s thus an old
one . People widel y nvoke anun als to learn ab out hu m an qual tes. or to demon-
strate righ t from wrong, or simply for enter tainm ent, They know ducks don't
really wear four-fi ng ered gloves and the top half of a saiJor suit, hut there is sorne -
thing self-revelatory abo ut seeing our own eha racteristics and shor tcom ings in
such a crea ture.
Th e h um an anim al, with eharaeteris tics of both, is thus a staple of the narra-
tive for mo Th s, of course, is a literary device, a m etaphor, telling us th at an im als
are like humans in some inter esting and m caningful way. But Darwin showed th at
there "vas another way to compare anim als and humans that wasn't merelv m eta-
ph oric al, but rath er was h istorical. If hum ans and apcs, for cxample, sha red a
recent common ancestr y, then their similarities are something of a different arder
than th e sim ilar ity of a pe rson to a wise owl or 8. busy be e. The hu m an -cape simi-
larity is a similarity ci biological correspondenee d ue to histary. They are sim ilar
because n ot too long ago, geologically speakng, they were the sam e thing.
These relations wcre late r distin guish ed as analogy, a corr espon den cc of fun -
damentally differen t struetures thal are never th eless sup erflcially similar sue h as a
mo squito wing and a bat wing, or a centipede leg and a ch icken eg, or <I n octopus
arm and a rnon key arm; and homology, a correspondence of fundamentaDy sim ilar
s~ructures, d ue to eo m m on descent, wh ch may nevertheless be superfieia lly
dfferen t-c-such as th e paw of a dog and ho of of a horse, OI the sn out o a pig and
the blowho Je of a dolph n . a r the wishbonc of a chicken and the collarbones
of a hu man. . simil ar is because the orangutan has bec ome very differen t, not beca use th e two
The dfference is that the first is still a meaningful symbolic corr esp ondcn ce,
but the second is a rneaningful biological correspondence. While we can use th e
same word to denote thc "wng" of a m osqu ito and a bar, that is simply a word
Phylogeny: The Core of Darwlnsm 49
game, for th e two are fundam entally d fferent struetures-developmenta lly, struc-
tu rally, and functonally In bo th cases, th e thing do es flap to prop el its b earer
through thc air, but it does so in quite differen t ways on quite diffcren tly built
crcatures. Convcrscly, although we may use different words to denote the dog's
paw and horse's hcof, th ey are developmentally, structurally, and func tion ally ver y
simil ar. Their relaiio nship of homology isn't a word game but a reflection of the
common biological un derpinn ings du e t common anc estr y.
This takes on considerable imp or tan ce in th e post-Darwinia n analysis of th e
.evolution of behavor, If a jointed suppor tive appendage of an ant s not a leg, but
a "leg" - that is, an analogy or wor d gam e lin kin g two fundamenta lly differen t
th ings-then what of slavery in ants ? Shouldn't it be "slavery"!
The concept of homology gets anothcr twist whe n we consider that many
organisms are composed of repeated parts, which also develop fro m a singl7 com-
mon ances tra l struct ure . These would indude th e segments of a centipe de, the
vertebrae of your backbone, and the relatio nsh ip between you r arm and your leg
(a single upper booe, two lower b ones, a comp lex joint, and five rad iatng dig ts).
Th is relattonshp s ealled serial homology. Whereas the seri al homology ofb odies
is relat ivcly minor. that of th c genes is quite extensive, with duplication of genetic
structures oeeurring throughout the chromosomes, wh ose imp lications we exam-
ine in the next chapter,
PHYLOGENY: THE CORE OF DARWIN ISM
After recognizing that orga nisms sha re a common ancestry to greater or lesser
degrees, and that this is why they seem to rese mb le each other to great er or lesser
degrees, th e next queston ls, How do we read th e history oflife?
To a first approximation, the more similar two species appear, the m ore
closely related they are , This is a simple eonseqnence of the faet that physlcal df-
feren tiation s panly a function of time, an d therefore, species that have been scp -
arate longer are llkely to be mo re different. To a second app roximati on, however,
rates of evolution are not constant, and .therefo re, a rapidly ehanging lineage may
leave several slowlyehanging lineages looking rather sim ilar to one another, wh ile
not being very closely related to one another. f
Consider, for example, the vervet monkey, spider m onkey, and ora ngutan.
While the two monkeys app ear to be more generally sim ilar, that is actu ally a
result of the apes havng diverged radically from the ancestors of vervet monkeys.
In fact, when we zero in on k ey features, we fin d that the orangutan and vervet
monkey match in the details of the ir teeth, noses, and bony ear chambers m ore
closely than the two monkeys do. The reason tha t the two monkeys look more
monkeys share th e most recent com mo n anc estry. Actually, the most recent com-
mon ancestry s s.hared by th e vervet monkey and orangutan, which we classify
together with in tb e primate nfraorder Catarrhini.
 50 CHAPT ER J CA N YO U TE LL I r YO U A RE A DA RW I NI ST ?
This kind of phylogenetic rcconst ruction is predicated on the faet that aboye
the species level. animal lineages do not grow back togcther, they only become
more separated. Since we defin e species partir by virtue of their inability to inter-
breed, it fol1ows that animals belonging to different genera or families cannot
interbreed an d thereby cannot become more similar to each oth er that way.
But below the species leveI, however, it can certainly happen. In othe r words,
populations can be similar ether because they share recent common ancestry or
because they havc been in genetic contact. Thcse biological histories are not dver-
gent or dend r tic, like classical macroevolutionary tree-like phylogenics, but retic-
uate, like blood vessels, som etimes branching and sometimes reuniting.
There are exceptions to these generalizations, it can be noted-such as the
~rot1igacy of plants outside th e recognized bou ndaries of species, or the applica-
[IOn of thcse ideas to viruses and bacteria. Nevertbeless, for the organisms of grcatest
concern to us- Iarge-bodi ed mamm aIs- the generalizations seem to hold well.
TH ER DARWINISMS
Social Darwinism
As in the days of Haeckel and Virchowat the end of the nneteenth century, we still
find t~~t propon~nts of other theoncs will claim to speak in Darwn'sname and try
to legt rnate their own ideas by associating them with Darwinian evoluticn. One
such school of thought s caUed "Social Darwinism," which also had its heyday in
the latter part of the nineteenth centnry. It was more the brainchild of Herbert
Speneer, a philo sopher-psyehologist-sociologist-biologist, wha developed a the-
ory of the "survlval of the f ittest" -and then convinced Darwin himsc1f th at it was
th c same as "natural select on"
There were two import ant dfferences, howevcr. Spencer's ideas involved see-
i~g "survival of the flttest'' as an engine driving species toward increased per fec-
no n, rather than j ust toward greater adaptation. Thus, he saw improvernent- not
just divergence-as the goal of evolutio n. Second, he believed a paral1el process
occurred in society. The fittest thrived, and lf you weren t thrvng. it was because
you just weren't fit.
Combining those ideas. he saw society progressing by virtuc of competition,
or survival of the fittest. Since it was obvous that wealthy British men were at the
top, it followed that they had outeompeted the rest of the world. And sinee the
world was obviously in good shape and getting better all the time, it followed that
the social h ierarchy that placed colonial powers above other nations, Britain over
other colonial powers, and the wealthy aboye the poor, was a good situation and
represented just thc playing out of natural processes,
There were two drect social impl ications. The non -Europcan nations had
obviously lost out in the comp etitive str uggle. If thcy died out, then, it was just the
way o~the world. So one coul~ easily see in thls doctrine a natural justifcaticn for
colonial oppre sson, f not outright genocide.
Other Darwinisms 51
The second implication concerned the relations between social c1asses in
Europe. The poor had obviously lost out in the competitive struggle as well. For
whatever reason- bad genes, bad work ethic - they were wher e they deserved to
be. Competition makes the cream rise to the top, said this doctrine.
Moreover, anj attempt to improve the lot of the poor (much less to stem the
greedy practices o the oil, steel, and railroad monopolies) could be seen as tanta-
mount to subverting the laws of nature. Thus, any government regulations to try
to improve the lot of the peor, such as child labor laws, or unioni zation, or even
breaking up monopolIes, would be bad for both th e hum an species and for th e
progress of civilizationl
By the turn of the twentteth century, it was widely recognized that the social
and political ideaspiggybacking on Darwini sm did not really derive a justification
from it. Rather, Social Darwinism seemed just to be a rationalization, by recour se
.to "the natur al w'y of things,' of the vices of the wealthy and powerful- greed,
unscrupulousness. and exploitation. However, these ideas do crop up in various
forms tim e and again. In 1994, a best-selling book ealled The SeU Curve argued
that (1) lQ is a measure of innat e intelligenee; (2) wealthy peopIe have higher IQs
than poor people:and therefore (3), programs desgned to amelIorate edueational
defieits among the poor should be abolished because they are doom ed to failure,
as they are thwarted by nature, for people are where they deserve to be. Th is,
clearly, was just 2 cosmetically altered version of th e Social Darwinist ideas in
vague a century earlier,
Nc o-Da rwinisrn
Darwn's ideas scemcd to run aground on a thorny issue of genetcs, Evolution by
natural selection began with the assumption of a variable popul ation. Darwin
ddn't know where the variation carne from, but for natural selection to act, there
must be variation present in the population.
A critic named Fleeming [enkn , however, pointed out that nat~ral selection
would be opposed by the predominan t model of heredty at the time, k.nown as
blending nhertarce. Imagine a hypotheti cal population of yeUow creatures and a
hypothe tical populatlon of blue ereatures. Th ey meet and mate. Under blendi ng
nheri tance, the resulting offspring are all green. The green ones can mate with
one anoth er, and their offspring will also be green; or they could mate with sorne
leftover yellows and have chartreuse (greenish-yellow) offspring, oc mate with
blues, and have teal (greenish-blue) offspring. What [enkin pointed out, however,
was th s: variation is being lost every gener ation. Unde r blending inheritance, a
population moves closer to homogeneity every generation. You can never recover
the original blues and yeHows!
Losing variation every generation would kilI natural selection as an agent of
cvolutionary change, if natural selection proceeds from the assumption of a vari-
able population. Darwin realized he needed sorne kind of an engin e to crank out
more variation as it became blended away and finalIy sougbt refugc in Lamarck's
theory of the inheritance of acquired characteristics. But th e premise of Ienkin's

52 CHAPTER 3 CAN YOU TELL I F YOU ARE A DAR WINI ST?
critique was that blen d ing nh erttance was the mechanism ofhered ity, and Gregor
Mendel's cont r buton was to show that was wr ong.
By the 1880s, a movement had arisen withi n biology to jettison Lamarckian
inh erltance on ce and for all-even th ough Mendel's work was not yet known. It
mi ght not have been cIea r whe re the missing vari atio n m ight come from , bu t it
wasn't coming from Lama rck, and Dar win was surely right about natural selec-
tio n, regard less of the th eoreti cal objections from Fleeming ]en kin.
The biological theory that arose shortIy be fore the tur n of the twen tieth ccn -
tury involved acc epting Da rwi nian n atural selection an d rejeeting Lama rckian
inher itanee, an d carne to be known as neo-Darwinism. It has been said th at these
scientists "out-Darw n ned Darwin" in accepting nat ural selection as the exclusive
agent oE evolutiona ry change, and seeing he redity as an un alterable destiny, excep t
through a rare and p erman en t change callcd mutation. Alternatively (and in th e
ne w science of genom cs, more realisticalIy), one can envisio n he redity to be a bit
mo re flexib le and respo ns ve, In fact, these were political1y infle cted viewp oints as
well, with aristoc rats imagin ing that he red ity is destiny, and the upwardly mob ile
classes ima gining he redity to be m ore supple, as they reinvented thcmselves on the
way up the social ladd er. A great deal of nterest s currently dlrected toward "epi-
gene ucs ,' th e stud y oE evolu tionary or genetic cha nges that aren't d ircctly encoded
in gene sequences.
T h e "Synth etic T heor y "
In th e earl y 1930s, the field of po puJation gene tics was inve nted in the math ema t-
ical work of Ronald Flsher, J. B. S. Haldane, and Sewall w right. They showed tha t
th e study of rnicroevolution couId be reduced in principie to a sma ll num ber of
gen etic pr occsecs, whic h couId be quantitatively analyzed, and whi ch would have
pred ictable effects up on n atu ral po pul atio ns of organ isms. Th us was Darwinism
"synth esized" with population genetics.
A few years later, a secon d gro up of biologists sh owed that no t only was the
work of th e pop ulatio n gen eties comp atible with wha t was detectable with in real
speces, but th e ide as were compatible as well with somet hing th e p opu lation
gene tc sts didn't examine- the forma tion of new species. Led by the Russan -
bo rn gene tici st Theo dosiu s Do bzhansky, wh o worked on fr uit fles, th e orni tholo-
gst Em st Mayr, an d Geo rge Gaylord Simp son , who worked on fossil mamrnals,
th e "Synthetic Theory of Evol ution" was in place by m id- centur y and so-named by
biologist [ul ian Huxley. the gra nd son of Th om as.
The Syn thetic Theory was Darwinian in two fu ndamental sen ses. First, it held
tha t microlevel processes couId be extrapolated to explain mac rolevel phe nomen a;
thus , the pro cesses by wh ich dog breeds dverged fro m one anoth er are essentally
th e same as th ose by wh ich dogs dverg ed from cats and be ars. An d second , it h eld
that sp ecies ach ieve an d m ain tain a fit to the ir environrnent th rough nat ural selec-
tion . However; it went be yond Darwin in integrating advan ces in cellular and
th eore tical gen etics, an d showing that mutation (cr eati ng genetie dive rsity) , selec-
tion (caus ing adap tation) , genetic drift (causing ran do m change), and gen e flow
Other Darwinisms 53
(homogen izing po pulations) mlg ht well be all that one needed lo explain th e
diversity of life.
Evolutiol1 at th e Mo lecular Lev e!
Darwin be came such a gurehead, much like Newton befo re hm, tha t h e beea me
botb myth and symbol. Like Newton. legends develo ped aro und him: th at the
Galpagos finche s had convinced h im of evolution; tha t h e ha d accep ted lesos as
his personal savior on his deathbe d; that h e was a r ank am ateur with no crede n-
tials at th e time he publish ed The Origi ofSpecies (al! false). Dar win also beeame
sym bolic of the nev modem b ology, as New ton ha d been of the new physics: as
we have seen, with each generation's pe t the ori sts trying to piggyback on Darwin.
Sometimes a symbol m ay b e so eulturaUy ch arged th at it can be invoked in
two seemi ngly opp osite ways. In fact, Da rw in became such a powerfu l symbol that
new ly em erging schools ofb iological thought have eith er aligned themselves with
him, to exploit his symb ollc valu e as the forward- secing father of modern bio logy;
or dia metrically agiinst him, to emp has ize Da rwin as the originator of th e powe r-
fui orthodoxy of mode rn biology.
. On e such school tha t arose in th e late 1960s as or th od oxies of all knds wer e
being att acked , emerged in the study of molecular evolution, th e compart son of
h omolog ous proteins and gene s across sp eces. When you compared biomolecules
across spec ies, you weren't confronted with evidence of a wise de sign and p rec-
sion craftsmanship. Par fro m it; rat her, you were struck by th e am ount of"slpp" in
th e system .
Diabetics , for example, ne eded to take injections of insulin. But what they
took at th e time was pig insuln, whic h was slightly different in structure from
hum an insulin. And yet it still worked. In oth er words, you could chan ge th e str uc -
ture and yet not compromise the fun ctional integrity of the hormone. Thi s h ardly
suggested preci se engineering and a p erfect fit of th e organism to its environment,
rath er, it suggested the body lo be making due with wha t's the re, and the detectable
molecu lar differences between specics to be just kind of rando m, not really criti-
cally adaptive.
These tw c propo sitions coales ced as the core of a new field of "m olecular
evolut on, ' wh ich cast itself as "non -Darwinian evolution." If the fundamental
ch ange s to DNA, resulting in changes to prcteins, were neither ha rmful nor be n-
eficial to th eir beerers, but werc m erely n eut ral, th en th ey would no t (by d efn -
tio n) be affected by natu ral seleetion. Rather, th ey would evolve ran domly by a
pro b abilistic process k.nown as gene tic drift. Perhaps, th en, evolutionary theory
h ad overstated th e case for evolution being adapt ve: maybe much of it was just
random ehange that al least d dn't h ur t you, and could aUow the b ody lo go on
function ing passaoly, This carne to be kn own as the "n eutr al th cory of molecular
Kimura.
.
evolutio n ," articulated in the L970s by th e Japan ese sta tistical gene ticis t Motoo
While it is now fairly clear that prote in structure and fun cti on are gene rally
indeed under selective const rain ts of var ying ntensites, an d thus are indeed afien
 54 C HA PTE R 3 . CA N YOU T EL L I F YOU AR E A DA RW I NI ST ?
subject to selcct ion, it is also clcar th at m ost DNA eha ngcs are n o t even expressed
in any forro with in th e ceUor the bo dy. Th us, the y are ndecd neutral, sinee if th ey
are not expressed as any kind of ph ysicaI differences, then they cannot have an
effeet on the survival or rep roduction of th e organismo Molecular evolution thus
ccnstitutes a paradox: th e evolution that it studies eomprises for _th e mo st par t
ne utral, une xpressed , n on adaptive dfferen ces between sp cctes. but wh at makes
e~oluti on int eresting are the tangible ph ysical differen ces th at arise bctwe en spc-
eres an d affeet the ir form and survival.
Thus th e paleontologist Geo rge Gaylord Simpson cou ld rid icule non -
Darwinan mol ecul ar evolu tion as the study of "th e m in ar features of evolut on,"
He had written a classic bo ok on The Majo r Features of Pvoluto n.
O n the ot her h an d, sch olars trained in molecul~ r evolution 'often com e to
~eneraI issues .in the fieId with a healthy skcpticism toward the view tha t or gan -
isms are precsely engn eered nstr um ents, finely tuned by natural select ion.
Indeed, in an in teresting twl st, we find th e great Frene h anthropologist Claude
Lvi-Strauss explaini ng th e ori gin of myths in h is classic, The Savage M ind (196 1).
Myth s, he says, are neith er pa ssed on p erfectly n tact, no r m ade up from scratch
cver y generat on. Rather; the y are cob bled together by m ythmakers from available
motfs and jerryrigged to be relevant and meaningful to th e time and circum -
stancc. Lvi-Strauss called the raw m aterials bricolage, and the myt hm aker a brico-
leur, usually translated as "tinkerer,"And when the mo lec ular gene ticist Pran cols
Iacob looked to a metaphor te express hi s vlcws on m olecular evolut ion , he took
inspiration from Lv-Strauss, dedariog that "evolutio n is like a tin kerer, not like
an englnecr"
Punctuated Equilibria
Anothcr self- prod aimed an ti-Darwin ian evolutionar y theory arose in th e 1980s,
with a criticism of Darwin's ext rapol ation from m icro cvolution ary to macroevolu-
tiona ry phe nom ena , spearh ead ed by the pal eontologists Stephen Iay Go uld an d
~iles Eldredge. Rather th an a smooth transition from populations th rough species
n to gene ra, perhaps th e literal or gin of species was acco mp anied by a break with
the direct pa st, so that d fferent p rocesses ma y ac t abo ye the sp eces level than
below th e sp ecies level. We know, for exarnple, that above th e specles leve! there is
generally no n rerbreed ng. but below the sp ecies leve! th ere is-perha ps th e
smooth extrapo lation is therefo re an over simpl flcat on. Moreover, why sho uld we
think th at rates of speciation an d extinc tion, wh ich are population -level processes,
should be en co ded in th e D NA of ndivdual organi sm s! A goal~Iine de fense, after
all, cannot be seen in the ac tivity of an)" ~ pecific foot balllineman, bu t only in th e
coordin ated activities of alI of them .
Th is was also accompa pied by a critique ofthe en gineering implied by seeing
natur al selection and adap ldllOl1 as the fundam ental pro ces.o;. cs of evolution. Dar~
;vinian th eor y and its suc cessors gene rally h cld speci es to be continuou sly adap t-
mg to continuously changing environments. This na turally implies th at specie s are
in sorne sense fu nd amentally un st able, and are always sh ifting in sh ap e. Instead,
Oth er Darwinisms 55
however, one could see speces as fund am entalIy stable un its (for, sayoa few mil -
lion years) that only changed noticeably al the bref tm e when they formed (over,
say, 50,000 years). The h story of a lineage might then look somewh at different,
consistin g oflong-term srass or equilibrium , int errupted by short-terrn cha nge or
punctuati on .
Its proponents called atte ntion to the fact that even Thomas Huxle y, upon
readin g The Origin 01Species, privately wrot e Darwin lo say tha t he had perh aps
relied too he avily on th e assumption that "natura non f acit saltU1~" (nat~re ~?es
nol make a lcap ). Its detractors derided il as "th e th eor y of evolut on by jerks, In
faet much of the theoretical basis fOI punctuated equilibria cou ld be found m the
wrt ngs of the syntheti c theorists Ernst Mayr (who wrote ab~ut rapid speciation
accompanied by genetic revoIutions) and Geo rge Gaylord Simp son (who wrote
about variatio n in evolutionary rates, from very slow [bradytely) to very fast
[tachytel yj). The argument, how ever, boiled down lo whether species were stable
fun damental units thro ugh lon g evoluti on ary tim e, OI wh ether they were con-
stantly sensitive to environmenta l pres sures and ad apting ge~ctically to each o ne.
The th eory of pu nctuated equ ilib ria also called attenton to oth~r facto~s
sh aping the history of life, such as ma ss exti nctions caused by ecologcal chain
reactio ns (and perhaps trggered by rare astronomical events, such as met eor
impacts). Thus it reopened, in a modern way, the ssuc of cata strophism that had
b een out of favor since the time of Ch arles LyeIl.
Sodob iology . .
At just about th e same time that the prevalen ce of adaptati~n wa~ beng called. l~to
que stion both by molecular geneticists and by paleontologists. a new synthesis of
work in theoretical population gen etic s an d ecology set out to acco unt ~or th e
adap tive sign ificance of behavior. While ts ques tions ostens ibly we:e on odd
issues -such as why population s regulate the ir growth and the evolutlon of par-
ticular sterile castes in wasps- its answers cut to th e core of Darwinism . Co uld a
behav tor evolve for the good of the group?
The answer was st raightforward. If it werc for the benefit of the gro up and
against th e benefit of th e actor, it cou ld not evolve b ecau se anyth ing against th e
actor's interests are select ed against, by definition. And f it were for the b enefit of
th e group and for the benefit of the actor, then h ow couId you ever say it evolved
for th e ben efit of the groupt As a result , a r goro us emphasis was placed upon
exp lain ing evolutionary phenomena in d assically Darwinian terms: the free m.ar-
ket str uggle of one organ ism again st ano ther in the competition fo~ lfe and b~bles.
The pr incipal exponent of th is school in th e 1970s was entomoI~~lst E. O. Wl1son.
But th ere was neverth eIess dissent over wh ether com petltIon occurr ed th e
classically Dar winian way, b etvveen individuals-or even more ba sicalIy, betw een
genes. Here, biologist Rich ard Dawk.ins m ade a case for "th e selfish ge~e" - that is
to sayo primord ial chemicaIs with no fun cHon othe r than to m ake cople~ of th~m
selves. Those th at di d so remaine d, and th ose tha t didn't ultima tely exptre d wh-
out issue. One way that such copying mi ght b e aided would be if th e gene were
 56 C HA P T ER 3 . C A N YOU T E LL I F YO U AR E A DA RWJ N IST?
capa ble of producing sornething to assist it in copying - a protcn, perhaps. O nce
agan , th ose th at did so rema ned, and those rha r dldn 't pe rished-al1d the result
was the d evelopment of th e cellular apparatus aro und the genes. Cells thus arose
to h elp the proteins helping the genes make copies of thcm selves. Later, groups of
cells made bodies aro un d lhe m selves, lo help th em help th e prcteins h elping rhe
gClle~ m ake cop ies of the mselves. An d fina lly, bodic s perform ed behaviors to help
make more bod es, to he lp ma ke m ore cells, to help m ake mo re proteins help make
more genes.
Thus (an d th e validity of the "rhus" is a bit vexing ), behaviors exist lo h elp
rnake more copies of gen es, and th e pro p er interp reta tion of a behav ior les in its
contribution to th e pro duction of genes. WiUiam D. Ha m ilton de rived conditions
under wh ich a beh avio r not to the good of th e ac tor [an "altrustic" beh avior)
m igh t evolve, if it were directed at relatives of the actor. Relatives, of COUIse, have a
prob ability of h aving in herited the sam e gene from a common anc estor. Tbus,
wh at looks Iike an altruistic act (against th e actor's interests) may actually be in the
in terests of th c ac tor's genes (an d thereby selfish from their perspective). An d
Roben Trivcrs derived con ditio ns under which such a superfically altr uistic, but
genetically selflsh, act cou Id evolve, even f dlrectcd at non relatives.
Th ey pu shed strongly ro explain al! behaviors as adaptations (th at is, as scm e-
th ing that evolved speeit1cally by na tural select on ) cith cr Irorn the standpoint of
gen etic copi es or of ph ysical offspring. Com in g at a tim e whe n the prevalen ce of
ad ap tation Irself was com ing into que stion both in molecular , volnri on an d in
ma ero evolutonary paleontol ogy, it set off an ide ological war, being Iabeled "Da r-
wnlan Fundamentalism" in the 1990, by Stephen Iay Gould.
Mo st con tro versia!, as mig ht be expee tcd , was the perceived need to explain
all human behavior as u ltimately selfish, howevcr altr uistt c it may seem at face
value. Humans, after all, h ave create d social entities that act to coerce people in to
doin g th ings for th e good of the group. Cons ider th e pay me nt uf incom e tax ,
which began in thc United States durng World War 1. If you give a sign ifcant
ehunk of your earnings away, you must to sorne exten t n'duce your probability of
survivaI and reproduction, compared to ho w much bctter off you'd be ti you had
thase as sets to sp en d. So why not boyeott pay ing taxes?: Becau se ir is again st the
Imv, and you m ay go to jail, whieh is definitely not in your interests. So the group
can eomp el actors to aet against their obviou s interests by introducin g eocrci ve
for ces. On th e othe r hand, your taxes do go to paying for civil defense, edu cation,
and law en forcem ent. so there is a sense in wh ich you r payme o t of taxes indeed
enhances yo ur own welfare.
Which of tho se two cxpla nation s for whyw~ pay taxes is superior? 15 it beeause
we have to or becau se ofthe individual benefits it purchases ? Ifbo th are right, s
there a way to ten wh ich is righter ? If we take it as an art icle offaith that every thi ng
mu st be explained as a selfish act, th at Ieaves us with the latter expl an aton; but
why should it be an artic1e offaith? And i fh umans can and do create cult ural insti~
tutions that com pel in divid u als to aet in the interest of those institutions, does it
not scem p er verse to deny th at people do it?
Other Darwnisms 57
Universal Darwinism .
The atte mp t to explan aH hu man behavior as selfish, b ecau~e it m~st be adap tlve
and aid in survival and reproduction of self or gene tic mat enal for it to be there at
all, is un dermined by anothe r movement that sprang from s~ciob i.ol ogy. Inspire~
by the gene-selectionist Richard Dawkns, this mo vem en t ~egm s with th e proposr-
tion th at the evolution of huma n beh avior is som ewhat dfferent because h uma~
instituti ons do pe rpetuate th emselves and do compe l individuals t~ act to the r
benefi t. 50 whether or not angels exs t, th e idea of angels perpetuates I t~elf gen:,ra-
tion after gen eration in the minds of people , Dawkins gave t h ~ na me me ~es te
these rep licating cultural units. Meme theorists th us .explam t~ e beha~lO r ~f
humans in the service of the replication of th eir own bodies, or the r geres 111 th eir
relartves' bod es, or their mem es.
Since this is a metap ho rical extensi n of Dar wnism , nvolving not the com -
petitive survival and proliferation oflivin g orga nisms, but rath~r t~e p ersevera~ee
of cultu ral or mental elernents, it h as been called a th eory of universal Da rw111-
isrn" Like earlier th eories ba sed on th e analogy of cultural world to th e natu ral
world (such as Social Darwin sm ), it is not at all clear that th s proce~s can ~e gen-
eralized to explain the features of interest in the cultu ral world sensbly, Is It at. all
illuminati ng to say that giving to cha rity is not "really" a selfless a~ t but rath e.r IS ~
consequen ce of th e spread of the meme for donation (lf sueh a t h m ~ even ~XIS ts~.
It s ecrtainly th e case tha t Darwin wouldn't recognize much of hlmself 111 th is
theor y. . . h
But that is pre cisely the p oint. Darwin ism has come to label many ideas ~n t e
eourse ofthe last century an d a halfbecause it is su eh as powerful wor~, callng to
mind th e mod emzeton of th e fie1d ofbiology an d the last great confli ct between
religious origin n arratives and scientifie origin narr atives.
Atheistic Darwin ism ..
Modern scienee is predic ated on a division between the material world, se~s~tlve
to experimental manipulaton and the identification of regu larity, and th.~ spmtual
world , which is impcrvious to both. This is a ver y odd view of the umverse: To
mo st human be ings, the world o f sp iritu al forces in terpene trates th e .world
of mundan e ex is tence. Las Vegas , fo r examplc, is bu ilt on the a s s um~ tlOn of
5uch interpen etrati<Jn (called "luck"). But if we ean't rely on our ~~ rcept l o ns, or
contro l variables, an d if th e obje ct of our examination is itself capnclous an d .r u~s
on m iracles rather tha n gen eralizable laws, th ere's very little we can do wlth It
scie nt ificalIy.
Of course, we (Quid do simulations with random number gen erators and
make statistical predictions about long- term outcomes . But s u ~pos e that wh~t
looks to us like a rando m event is reall y controlled by force s outslde our percepti-
ble sphere? ' . .
The answer, as the first generation of scientIsts back III th e seventeen th cen-
tur y reeogn ized, is 6at, whether or not our subje ct is act~ally g~verned ~ nly by
ma terial forces, science can funct ion u nder th at assumpt lon. SClence can t work
 Refereoces and Further Rcading 59
58 CHAP T ER 3 CAN YQ U TEL L I F YQ U ARE A DA RW IN IST?

with -the spiritual and the mirac ulo us: bu t it also can't show th er absen ce. AH it can The probl em is that, with "Da rwinism" as a powe rful a~d evoc~ti~e c~Itu~al
do is pro ceed is if the y are absent and see what comes of it. And of course, what symbol of modernity and progress. th ere is rhetorical po wer l~ assoclat~ng rt with
comes of it are antiblotics, vaccnatton s, and thermonuclear bom bs. one's own relgous (or irreligiou s) vews. Whether Go d exists and mtervenes
That Ieaves open, ho wever, th e question of th e spiritual (n ot to mention th e actively in the world, or whether He set up laws an d th en let th e world al~n.e to
moral) universe. What can we say about it, fro m th e standpoint of science?: Quite n or whe ther He d oe sn't exist at a11- th at's simply not th e sph ere of DarwlllIsm .
sim ply. no thing. The responsibility lies with scientists th em selves to differentiate answers to ques-
Dar win did not deny miracles. He simply showed that lfe eould multiply in tions th ey do kn ow about From answers to que stions they don 'tknow about-but
form and adaptation without such int er ven tio ns. And on the last page ofhis most it s rarcly in their interests to do so.
amous book, he made it clear th at although th e origin of lfe itself mig ht be rnirac-
ulous, th e origin of species ne ed n ot be . He sim ply cut back on th e num ber REFER EN CES AND FURTH ER READ I N G
of m irade s n ccessa ry to u n der stan d th e h istor y and diver sity o f life- n ow ju st
Cartmill, M. 1994. Acritique of homology as a morphological conceptoAmerican Journal of
"a fcw .. . or .. . ene,"
Evangelical athe ists qu lckly ado pted Darw in as a figurehead. Swept up in the PhysicaJAnthro,M logy 94: 115- 123. . ' . ,
Claeys, G. 2000. The"survival of the fittest" and the ong ns of Socal Darw101SlU. ]ournal o;
tde of prngress and m odernity th at overwhelmed late ni neteenth -ce ntur y Euro pe
the History of Ideas 22:223-240. . . k
an d Am erica, scien ce h as often been Invoked as supers edng religion - usualIy in Collins, F. 2006. The Language of God: A Scientis t Presents Evidence fo r Be{lcf New Yor .
a self-serving fashion that sets thc speaker up as a kind of Pope,
Free Press. . . d Creationi
Concurrently, apo logists for science or religion have been kno wn to arg ue Cosans, C. 2009. Owens Ape and Durwns Bu lldog: Beyond Dar wrlsm an reatlom sm.
that th eir do rnains are ent rely separate- despite th e obvious and constant nt ro- Blocmngton: Indiana Un versity Press.
gressions of one on the oth er. The truth hes somewhere in the middle. R 1976 The Sellfish Gene. New York: Oxford University Press.
Dawxkims.cc. . 11 M d
First, human history is no t lin ear an d transform arive: religin d id not super- ki R 1983. "Universal Darwinism" In Evoiut ion f rom M o ecu es to an , e .
Daw Ins, .
sed e magic or superstition, and religion is cer tain ly not being superseded by sci- D. Bednall, 403-4 25. New York: Cambridge Un versty Press.
ence. Religion is everywh ere fiourishi ng. Second, th ey do come regulady in to Dawkns, R. 2006. The God Delusan. New York: Bantam. . .
Dennett, D. C. 1995" Darwins Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the M eanlngs of Lije. New
contact in the area of or igin narr atives, at the very least. Scienc e can pla ce con -
strain ts on th e type of or igin na rr ative, f the on ly criterio n of interest is accuracy. York: Slmon and Schuster. f
Its oot a1l sex and violeoce: Integrated anthropology and the role o
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peopIe othc r th an scien tists. Th ey might be m or e int erested in whcther it lnstllls a Gould, S. J. Darwinian fundameotalism. TIte New York Review oJ Books, Iune 12, 1997,
feeling of belongtng, or of justice-o r just whe ther it rhyme s. The heaven ly an d
34 -3 7. h . 1 Th Evolut ion
m oral worlds may be just more important to many people th an wh et her th ey carne Gould, s. J. 1981. G. G. Smpson, paleontology, and the modem synt esrs. n e . -
from mo nke ys. ary Synthesis, ed E. Mayr and W. Provine, 153- 172. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Ulllv~r-
So, fourth, f science is pred icated on a sep aration of th e spiritu al from the
sity Press. . e b "d MA'. Harvard Un iver-
Gould, S. J. 2002. Tu Structure oJ Evolut /ona ry Theory . am n ge,
material realms, th en why d o scientists con d uct peri odic forays into areas where
th ey hav e no expertise or knowledge-like th eology (and hu ma n hi story, com e to sity Press. d 1 d
think of it)? 15 it poss ible that with the ir n oteworthy success in developing weap- H L,". 2000. Fundament als of Molecular Evolurion. 2nd cd. Sun cr an ,
Graur, D., and W..-.
on s of Mass Destru ction, scie nti sts have com e to feel- da re 1 say it, arrogantly?- MA: Sinauer. . 1 h! U
Hofstadter, R. 1944. Social Darwin ism in American Thought. Philade P la: ruversr o
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as though they can pronou nce autho ritat ively on subjects outside their dom an!
ln dced . stim ulated by the aggressve athe ism espoused by some scien tists, like Pennsylvania Press. . ". " .
Lamb 2005. Evo/utj on in Four DlmenSJOns: GenetlC. Eprgenetlc.
Oxford's Richard Dawkins, an equally embarras sing op posi tio nal gen re of scien - Jablon ka, E., an d M. . "d MA Th MIT
Behav joral, and Sy mbolic Variation in the History of Lije. Cambn ge, : e
tific pieties ha s begun to em erge. Th e Hu man Ge nom e Project's Francis Collins
Press.
(no w Director o[ th e Natio n al In stitutes of Health) publicly professes h is Ch ris tian J b F 1977 Evolution and tiokering. Science 196:1161- 1166. . .
faith, for example, and sh ows you how h e reconciles hi s faith to hi s scien ce, as if ~~~k~, J. 200;. Gene3, bodies, and species. In Phy sical A nthropology: Original Readmgs m
you sho uld eare. Personall y. 1 am as skeptical df geneticisls on the subje el of lheol- M ethod and Pru:tice, ed. Peter N. Peregrine, C. R. Emhcr, and M. Ember, 14- 28.
ogy as I am of the ologians on the subject of gen etics. Englewood Cliffi, NI: PrenticeHall.
 60 C HA P TER 3 C A N YQ U T ELL I F YQU AR E A D ARWI N ISn

Massin ; B. 1996. From Vrc how to Pisch er : Ph yslcal anthropology an d modern race theo-
ries in WilhcImine Germa ny. In Volksgeist as Meth od and Ethic: Essays on Boasan C H A PT E R 4
~thnogr~phy~nd (he Germa n anthropologcal tradton, ed. G. Stocking, 79-154. Mad-
rson. Unl versiry ofWisconsin Pre ss.
Mayr, E. 1982. The Growth of Biologcal Thought. Ca m br idge. MA: Harvard Unversity
r
Press. .
McKin no n . S. 2005. Neo-Liberal Genetics: The Myths and M oral Tales cf Evolutionary
Psych ology. Ch cago, IL: Prickl j- Paradig m Prcss. Why Do 1 Look Like the Cable Guy,
Rezn ick, D. N., an d R. E. Ric klefs. 2009. Darwln's brid ge between mi cr ocvolu tio n and
ma croevolu tion. Nature 457:837-842. Daddy? (On Issues of Human
Rose. H. and S. Rose. eds. 2000. A las Poor Darwin. London: Ionathan Cape.
Ruse, M. 198 l . The Darwin an Revolution. Chcago, IL: University of Chic ago Press.
Ruse, M. 1988. Taking Da rw in Seriousy. New York: Basil Blackwell. .
Heredity)
Schultz, E. 20 09. Resolving the an t- an tevolutio nis m dilemma : A br icffor relational evolu-
. tion ar y thin k ing in an th ropology. A me rican Anthropologist 111:224-237.
S~mpson. G. G. 1949. The Mea nng cfEvolut on. New Have n, CT: Yale Univers ry Pr ess.
Slm pson, G. G. 1953. The Major Features oi Evolut ion, New York : Colum bia Universty
Press. THEME
Stebblns, G. L., and F. J. Ayala. 1981. Is a new evo lutlonarj- syn th csis necessar y? Science While Mendel's "laws" are generally presented as the foundation of modern genet -
213:967-97 1. cs, they are more commonly honored in the breach. Indeed, Mendel's work actually
Ta~tersaIl. I. 1999. The abuse of ad aptati on. Evolut ionary Anthropology 7:115- 116. explains remarkebly little of modern human genetics. Most significantly, however,
w son, E. O. 1975. Sociobiology: The New Synthess. Cambridge. MA : Ha r vard Universitv cultural meanings and values permeate even the molecular aspccts of genetics.
Presa '

There are exactly three reasons to study genetics in anth ropology. Thc first is to
help understand how evolution works. The second is to study how people d ffer
from one anothe r. And the third is to look at genetcs etlmographically. as an
example of the way in which scentlfic kno wledge is pro duced and consumed by
modern saciety.
Altho ugh eelis had been known since the late 1600s, it wasn't until the m iddle
of the nineteenth century that they were recognized to be the fun damental units of
life. The great German pathol ogst/a nthropologist Rudolf Virehow (whom we
encoun tered in the previous chapter for his opposto n to the linkage ofbiological
Darwini sm lo political Darwi nism ) m ade a Latin epigram farnous: Omnis cellula
ex cellula-all cells come from cells. In other words.Hfe does not get created every
generation (this is a denial of the theory of spontaneous generation, that living
thing s can eontinually arise from nonliving rnatter). Rather, there is a continuity of
llfe: and all living things are literally descended from previously living things. And
where that may not be immediately obvious to the eye (as maggots appear to arise
on rottin g food), it is obvious mieroscopically.
There were, however, certain attra ctions of the theo ry oE spontaneous genera-
tion. For the materialst, it was a way to argue that there is no basic 'dfference
between life and nonlfe, for the former can arise from the latter. Por the natural
theologian, nterested in understanding God through nature , spontaneous genera-
tion couId be seen asa series of miracles, God's creative powers at work in the here
and now.
 62 C H A PTER 4 WHY DO 1 LOO K LI KE T H E CAB LE G U Y, DA DD Y?
Nevertheless, it is wrong. Obviously Iife arose from nonlife once-s-or at least
once-but a11 of those semi-living, sem- cells are long gane. Cell division is the
way in wh ich living thin gs grow and proliferare tod ay, (Vruses, wh ch parasitize
cells, nevertheless canno t reproduce without them .)
A eomplem entary development in the irnrnediately post-Darwinian years was
th e recognition that th ere are two kinds ofcells, and two kinds of cell division. The
body (Greek, soma), Is comp osed of"sornatic" cells, and grows thro ugh a pro ccss
of cell division called mitosis. The cell doub les its parts; then splits in two, and thc
two daughter celIs are geneticalIy identical to each other, and to the ori ginal ceIl.
This is a clonal process of cell proliferation In which the result ts an organized mass
of geneticall y idenlieal eells.
The germ ceIls are sequestered in thc reproductive organs, ano divide in a dif-
ferent way, caIled meiosis, which will redu ce th eir genetic constitution by half.
Thus, eggs and sp erm contain half the am oun t of genc tic material as ord inary
cells. This halving is counterac ted by the fusion of egg and sperm every genera-
tio n, the act of fertilization, which restore s the proper am ou nt of genet ic material
lo th e new zygote, or fertl zed egg. The zygote will then divide mitotieally lo
develop intc the body of the offspring.
In add ilion lo the question of whether Jife eould regularly arlsc from nonl fe,
another open que stion was whether the growth of an embryo involved producing
a new fuoctioning body from an un differentiated m ass every generation (epgen -
ess), or wheth er instead, a baby was always there in sub-visible form and simply
expanded with in the malernal womb (preformalion). Like all folk theon es of
heredity, induding spontaneous generatio n, there were sociallsymbo liclreligious
impli cations. After all, knowledge of the world is invariably integrated into kno wl-
edgc of more important things, like proper behavior and religious dury; Modern
science is uniquc in tryiog to keep them separate.
If preformatonl sm were true, and emb ryonic development were simply
growth, then men could be seen as cont ributing substance. and wom en could be
seen as contributi ng a nurtun ng environmen t. Th is view of human reprod uction
more or less paralleled traditional Europ ean views of dom estic life. It also was
pro ved by sorne of the earlest microscop ic studies of sperm , which seemed to show
a little fellow, or homun culus, in the spcrru hcad. That little fe11ow, of cours e, had to
have his offspring preformed in his own tiny germ inative organ s. Ultimately, then,
th e entire demographc history of the hu man species would have been created by
God within Adarns genita lia. A different eighteent h -ecntury take foeused on Eve's
ovaries, and had a moth er providing both the form and the nurturi ng environment
for the embryo, while men provided a kind of tri gger for its devc1oprnent.
While the nested hom unculi would have been infinitesirnally small, they
would not neeessar ily have been impossibly small. In fact, a belief that Adam and
Eve lterally embodied the whole homan raee had the theol ogieal attraction of
imp lying that the human species had to end sometime, since Adam and Eve's gen-
italia were not infi nitely large. So there realIy was an end lo hstory, a "last genera-
tion," as the Bible forctoldl (And , of course, ths i.ght be it!)
Th em e 63
But t doesn't happen tha t way. Pertllzaton involves an equal contribution of
father and mother, with the small exception of the m itochon dria, provided by the
mother, along with its own DNA. The zygote th en divides and develops, and
begins to form, as its genetic instructions are mplemented, all of the structures
and organs it will possess.
Thi s happens every gencration. A child ts buiIt not from a seed or germ present
in the organs of every preccding generation, but from a set of instructions, whose
speciflcs are cootinually being recombined and reconstituted.
If a child arises from a set of instructions instcad of from a seed, th e impl ica-
tions are rather different. History is less bounded: the instructions could be there
in the infinite future and the infinite pastoNeither par ent necessarily contributes
more "subsrance" to the child; the instruction s couId (and do) come equally from
both. -
Another problem that vexed biologists in th e late ninet eenth century was
Lamarck's theory of the inheritan ce of acquired cha racteristics. Did organ isms
absorb the qualiti es they developed during the ir lifetimes and pass them on in a
stable fashion to their descendants!
The German ceU bologst August Wcisma nn showed that they d dn't.
According lo what was alread y kn own about cells, they couldn't. After all, th e next
generati on comes from celIs of tissues that have alrea dy been formed: th e testes
and the ovaries. There is no way to get information from soma tic cells into the
next generation; the next generation will be coming from germ cells alread y set
apart early in embryonic life, and only tho se celis will contribute. With out an
effcient mechan sm for shunting information from the rest ofthe body into those
parti cular cells and some how chan ging th em, there could be no Lam arckian
inheritance.
Weism ann caUed this idea "th e cont inuity of the germ -plasm" (Greek plasma.
meanin g tissue), It meant , very simply, that-building on all cells comip g from
ceUs-life is a 10n:e:7 and unbroken series, when looked at from the standpoint of
cells. But there is more to it, for th e cells of the body, the somatic cells, constitute a
dead end; the y will die when the body dies. But th ere will be another generation of
bodies , which will come from gerrn cells. In other words, it is specifically the
unbroken series of germ cells that cornprise th e history of life; the somatic cells-
the bodies- are mere vessels.
This view is what the English writer Samuel Butler was referring to when he
wrote famously in 1877 that ''A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg"
Seeing the life processes from the standpoint of cells made Lamarckian nhe r-
itancc largely meaningless. To dr ive the point home , a classic experiment is attrib-
uted variously to Weisman n or to Ivan Pavlov, of salivating dog fame: The
experim enter brcd mice for fifty generatio ns, and every generation 'cut the tail off
each mouse. Und er a regime of Lamarckian inheritance, you would expect th e
rnice'stails to shnvel or dwindle in later gener ations. Yet the tails of the miee of the
51st generation had tails the same length as those of the 1st generation. No kind of
"tail-absence informa tion" was passing from th e mousc's bo dy to its gonads; its

64 CHAPTER 4 WH Y DO 1 LO O K LI K E TH E C A BLE G U Y. DADD Y?
germ cells, which were un affected by th e su rgery every gen eratlon, sirnply trans-
m itted the n formaticn on an intaet tail each time.
So the dev elopment of cell biology in Ge rmany proved to b e a valuabl e addi-
tion to the understanding of h eredity, and h elped to solve sorne vexng pr oblems,
by providing another way to loo k at thern. .
THE THEORY OF PARTICULATE INHERITANCE:
MENDEL'S LAW S
Th c resernblan ce between famil y rnemb ers is ackn owled ged worldwide an d
explai ned in rnan y ways. We are interested in it specifical1y because th e principies
of h eredity constitute the fu n dame ntal backd rop to evolutionary theory wh en we
ask how descen dant s come to differ from their remote ances tors.
In destroying the basis for th e older theo ries of spontaneous generation and
the inheritance of acqui red characteristics, th e cell theory laid the grou n dwork for
a mode m theory of he redity. The thi rd p ece of the puzzle was already in place bu t
would go u nrecognized un til 1900: Mendc l's theory of nheri tance.
It was eertain ly appreciated tha t sorn e tr aits "run in famles"-like dseases,
wh ieh often sh ow up with equal intensity in all affected family m embers. Altern a-
tively, sorne traits "blend away"- for example, th e offspri ng of a dark-skinned per-
son and a Iight-skinned pe rson would ten d to have skin of in term ediate shade . In
th e first case, inheritance would seem to be operatiog as Iittle pa rtlcles, tran sm it-
ted p erfe etly intaet aeross generations. In th e second case, inheritan ce would seem
to be like the mix ing of fluids, becom in g progressvely d ilut ed wit h each pa ssing
gene rat ion.
In fact, th e latter view, known as "blending in heritan ce," was a favorcd th eor y
for n her ance generally. And as we saw in thelast chapter, it pos ed a sign ificant
problem for Dan.... ns theory of natural selec ton. It was Mendel's contr ibution to
sh ow th al he redity is n ol blending, after alI.
Mendel worked wit h pe as. and studi ed th e transmission of seven qu alit ies of
pea plants, each inhe r ited in a binar)' fashlon (tall and short; green pods an d
yelIow p ods; ro und an d wrinkled; etc.). Me ndel's two laws (ealIed "segregation'
and " ndependent asso rt rnent") were unknown to him as such and were not even
eodifie d u ntil 1916.
Men delia n genetics says th at a trait is controlled by a pair of genes, on ly one
of wh ich is passed on to a par ticular offsp ring. The fun damental in sight h ere s
th at n othing h appen s to the un it of inheritance as it is transrni tted ac ross a gen -
eratio n. It is tr an smi tted wh olly intact, as a partlcle, rather than bei ng blende d
away or d iluted, as a fluid . Thu s, th e critique of natural selec tion ba sed on
blend ing inheritance is irrelevant b eeau se bl en d ing inhcritance Isn't the way
th ing s work.
We m ay observe. howe ver, th at sorne traits, like skin colo r. do appear to
blend. We di stinguish here bet ween a blending pattern and a blending process.
Th c app earance of blendi ng is the result of several different genes cn ter ing into
Ten Non-Mendelian Laws 65
different cornbinations: th e process is still a p art icul ate one . What is interesting
about Men delian genetics is its generality, for it (so mew hat cou nterintuitively?)
applies as well to the in heritance of cystic fibrosis in h umans as it doe s to h eight
in pea pla nt s. Two h etero zygous car ri ers of eystie fbros s, wh o do n ot the m selves
have the dis ease, stand a 1 in 4 chance o f having a ch ild with the d isease by p re-
I1
cisely the sarne logic as Mendel's plants. Thi s shows another important and
somewhat counterintuitive conseque nce of the ceU theory. Peas do not eat, I
breath e, mature, defecare, or speak like human s do. Why on ea rth should wc
think that they rep roduce like humans do? The answer is that from the stand -
point of cells-and only from th e stan dp oint of cells-they do indeed seem to
I
repro du ce like humans. Th ose corn monalities eompr isc the m ost fundament al
breakthrough of late nineteenth-cen tury biology: the idea of the "model organ-
ism," ano the r species that can be used as a simple surrog ate to study what you are
really interested in for peopIe.
TEN NON -MENDELIAN LAWS
T he C h rom o so m e Theory
Mc ndel's wo rk was resurrected In 1900. so rne 35 years after it was first pub lished.
The rea son Mendel's work had becn buried was that hc rcdity an d dcvclopment
were considered as parts of the same process at the tim e h e wro te. But Mendel
worked on tra ns missio n without regard for the develop m ent of tr ait s. Sin cc h e
wasn't folIowing the aecepte d rules of thin kin g about th e subj eet as th ey exisled
in 1865, his wo rk eould be readil y ign ored by th e lead ing seho lars. By 1900,
however, it ha d becom e clear that heredi ty and developrnent could ind eed b e
seen as dis tinct processes n different m odel orgaois ms; the mistake h ad been in
mix ing them together (as. for example, Lam arck h ad ). This cast Mc n dcl's work in
a ncw, an d b ett er, light. A few years late r, they even had a word for thi s new field :
"genetcs"
Cell bio logists also had begu n lo realize by th e turn of the centu ry that eell
divisin was invariably preceded by the eonc en tration of th e dffuse m ass of th e
cells nucleu s int o a small nwnber of d iscre te bodes, which could be stain ed and
seen in the microscope. These chromosomes (Greek for "colored bod es") seemed
also to be tght ly associated with bologcal inh eritance: ch rom osomal oddities
were pa ssed on perfeetly intact, and wheo th ey were associated with phenotyp ic
features, those were passed on intact, too. But these biologist s were working with
m crosco pe s, and were differen tly tr ained from the plant breeders who were Imak -
ing statistical gene ralizations about th e inheritance of speci fic features of their
organisms. Consequently, the Mendelian theory and ch rom osome theory had a
tense eoex istenc e for several ycars, as th ey appe ared to b e alternatives.
It was the Ame rican fru it fly gene ticist Thorn as Hunt Morgan wh o put th is all
togeth er, publishing a series of papers beginning abuut 1910 that showed that (1)
genes are units of inheritan ce, as the followers of Mendel had b een arguing; an d
 66 C HA PT ER 4 WHY D O 1 LO OK LIKE THE C ABL E GUY. DA DDY ?
(2 ) ea'ch gene occupies a particular place (or locus) on the chromosomes, which are
the unts that are ltera y, physicaUy transm tted. species. We have longgeneration times, few offspring, and prefe r to mate by choice
Hum an garnctes have 23 ch romosomes. Wc call this state, having one set of
chrom osomes, haploid. Sp erm and eggs, the produ cts oEm eiosis, are h aploid-
th ey h ave ha lEof the chrornosomes that som atc cells have. Human som atic cclls,
by contrast, are dip lold, having two sets of ch ro mosom es, for a total of 46.
Anoth er way of thin king about the ch romo som es oE sornatie cel1s is tha t they
h ave 2.1 pairs of ch ro mos omes, on e of each pai r h avngco rne from farhe r, and th e
other from moth cr, Co nsequently, the pro cess of me oss involves send ng on e
rep rcsentative from each chromosome pair into aoy par ticular gamete.
Li n k a ge
Of course there are many genes, an d rather few chromosomes. A h uman sperm or
egg, for exam ple, h as 25 ,000 gen es dis tributed over 23 chrornosomes. A pa rticul ar
chrom osorne, th ercfore , may have severaI thousand gene s on it. Genes tha t are
close by, on the same chromosome , will ten d to be inherited toge th er because they
are pa rts of a single ph ysical un it, the ch romosome.
The transmission 01 gene tic variations together, residing nearby on the same
chromosome, is caled linkage.
C rossing-O ver
Lnkage was discovered by Morgan and his stud ents earlv in the twen tiet h century,
wor king on fruit flies. Shortly th er eafter, they di scovered an impo rtant ad dition to
the idea oflinkage-in esscn ce its opposite, crossng-over,
We no w kn ow-th anks to th e insightful d educton by Mo rga n'.. aro up-e-th at
d uring thc r-rocess of m eios is, wh en gamc tes are Eor ming, the homologous chromo-
som es-s-that s, chromosome 1 f rom mother and chrom osome 1 fro m father, and so
forth-pair up with onc another and actually exchange p ieces. We don't know how
they recognize eaeh other in the cells nucleus, but this pairing and exch ange,
called crossing-over or recombination, m ust happen to every ch romosom e pa ir at
least once, oc eIse th e seg regation of chromosomes into ha ploid germ cells will no t
be accomplished pro pe rly.
Ind ep endent assortm ent des cribes the fact that any particular on e of your
gametes will contain a m otley corn binati on oEchro m osornes you inher ited from
your father and from yo u r mother. Crossing-over ensures that eae h ch ro moso me
itself consists ofbits derived from you r m other att ach ed to bits derived from your
father. This is a system th at h as evolved to m ax im izc dversty within th e lim its set
by cell d ivisin.
Polygenic I n h eritance
A fourth non -Men del an law involves the gcneralzation we can m ake abou t phe-
n otyp cs in relation to gen es. Everything ph enotypically interesting is controlled by
m ore than one gene; the ex cep tions are trvialites (like ear wax and bood type) and
pathotogies (like cysticfi brosis).
Ten Non-Mendelian Laws 67
Hu man gen etics is comp licat ed by th e fact th at we are a poo r experime ntal
rather th an at the request of a gene ticist. Consequently, our knowledge of hu man
gen etics is con siderab ly more pri mitive th an tha t of fru it flies or mice . Fur ther, it
has tended to be approached th rough the study of disease.
One of the od d conse qucnccs of thi s is th at we know cxceedingly little ab out
the genetics of being normal. The genes we h ave isolated and rnapped tend to be
bioche micals, such as cnzymes, whose gene ral effeet on th e b od y is unclear : or
major p athologies, sueh as cystic fibrosis, Tay-Sachs' d sease, or Hu ntin gton's ch o-
rea. Ofcourse, there is no gene whose fun etion is to glve yo u cystic fibrosis. Rath er,
there is a gene whose func tion 1S not well-kn own-i n thi s case. th e transpo rt of
ions through th e cells of the Iungs- wh ich, when Its effect is compromsed. pro -
duces cystic fibros is.
We then employ ashorthand, and cal1 it the cystic fibrosis gene. In thi s way, we
build up a very mor bid map of th e human genes: arca ne biochemicals and diseases.
Th ere are sorne traits in the literature that are believed to be under th e contro l of a
single gene , such as earlobe sbape, eye colo r, tongue rollng, and th e ability to be nd
the th umb backwards-e- but these genes haven't been m apped ; and in sorne cases,
they are simply untrue.Tongue rollng, for example, was pro posed as a single-gene
trait by the gene ricst Alfred Stu rtevant in th e 1950s, an d retr acted shortly thereaf-
l
1
ter, but it has such utility in genet ics classes th at it continues to be taught!
And yet, the ability to bend the thumb backwards did not allow us lo outlas t
the Neandertals: nor did the sh ape of our earlob es. We are interested in th e tra its
th at make us human-traits like brain size, biped alism , langu age, a broad pelvis,
long legs, harlessness, th e distr ibution of sweat glands, and so fort h. We don't see
genes for these in the h um an gene map. Why? Because th ey are a11 eornplex fea-
tures, the products of the inte ractions of several or m any genes.
Although physical featu res are ultim ately caused by genes, and Mende!'s laws
govern th e transm ssion of genes, Men del's laws do not directly govern the tr ans-
mission of ph ysical feature s. They are the products of m any genes interacting
togethe r, and consequently, the ir inhe rita nee is comp lexo
Env ir o n m en ta l l n flu en ce on Phenotypes
An importan t reason to distinguish hetween genotype an d ph eno typ e is that df-
ferent gcno types may result in the same pheno type, or th e sam e geno typ e may
yield different phenotypes.
Wc saw earlier that Men del interpreted "tall plant s" versus "short plant s" as a
conseq uence of the acton of a single gene. O f course, we assume he watered both
kin ds of plants equally, because f he didn't water the short plants, t's no wonder
they turned out th at way!
O bviou sly th e height attained by a plant is sensitive to the environmental con-
d tions withi n wh ich it grows.
Now lcts th ink about people. It h as been estim ated th at the range o n ormal
hei ght is a result of the action of abo ut 7 gene s. We have no t identfied th em ,
 68 C HA P TER 4 W HY D O r LO O K LI KE TH E C A BL E GU Y, D ADDY ?
however, Th ere are also genes known that affeet height pathologieaUy. One symp-
tom of Marfan syndrome. for exarnple, is tall statu re; and one symptom of achon-
dr oplasa is small stature. Both of those genes have been mapp ed, but they affect
the height of relatively few peop le.
So let us say you are one of the normal people, whose 7 major undi scovered
genes dispos e you to be bg. Will you be 5'9", 5' 11", or 6'2" talli That will depend
on several facto rs, from the long-term quality of your diet, to yonr habits, ro your
general health, activity level, exposur e to sunshine , and possibly man y other
th ings, of varyin g degrees of subtlety. We kno w, for example, that an average lapa-
nese ma le of 1995 was nearly 6 inches taller tha n an average Iapan ese male of 1955,
due presumably to general changes in diet and lifestyle; th e Dutch are presentIy an
average of about 8 inehes taUer tha n the Duteh people of ISO years ago.
The ran ge of phen otypic variations possible with a single genotyp e is known
as the norm of reaction . It s, however, a lot easier to study in model organisrns Iike
fruit flies than in humans. As 0[2009, genomics had given us 44 "candidate genes"
affecting human height, but togeth er they only account ed for about 5% of the var-
aton in human height.
Th e point, then , is that a phenotype is the result of a complex mixture of
genetics and th e conditions of life. Th us, a fifth non -Mendelian law: Phenotypes
are under-determined by genotypes.
Un it Charaeters
A sixth non- Mendelian la,..' involves the relationship between genes and pheno-
types. As we saw, Gregor Mendel nfcrred the binary units of inh eritan ce from the
binary traits he examined-talllshort plants, yellow/green seed color, and so forth.
The success ofhis work in simplifying the m echanism of heredity to the transmis-
sion of basic inform alional units was cJcar after 1900, but it led down a very large
blind aUey.
They say that when the only tool you have is a hammer, everything tends to
look like a na l, and that is a very apt analogy for human genetics in Americ a in the
1910s and 1920s. Huma n geneticists, Ied by Ch arles B. Davenport , began ro find
binary tra its caused by binary genes everywhere. Davenport, for example, held
th at sailing peoples had a gene for "th alassophilia" (Greek for "leve of the sea").
And thu s, the next non-Mende lan law: Although thcre are unts of hereditary infor-
matian (genes), there are no unt characters of the phenotype that map on to them.
Consider Davenp ort's most famous idea, the gene for "feeblem indcdness,"
located in thc constitution s of poor peop le, .immigrants, and criminals, and inhib-
iting them from successful, hone st, moral lives. If this sounds rd culous. conslder
that the Supreme Court, in the infamous Su ck v. SeU decision of 1927, uph eld the
rght of the state of Vieginia to sterilize a woman against her will, because she, her
mother, and her daughter were all judged to be feeblem inded. Based on what they
beIieved to be the best scientific, genetic evidence, the Cour t ruled that "three gen-
erations of imbeciles is eno ugh'' And genetic testimony about the "feeblemin ded -
ness' of Italians and Iews helped pass the imm igration restriction act of 1924.
Ten Non-Mendelian Laws 69
The important point is: Iust because you can come up with a name for some-
thing, that doesn't mean theres a gene for it. Wh at appear to be nameable entities,
whether personality tra its or anatomical features , do not corr espond to specfic
genes. Genes buld bodies as a system; unit character s don't correspond to units
cf inherit anc e. You have elbows and you have a nos e, and you have genes, but
there is no "elbow" gcnc;Qr "nose" gene; much 1ess a "musical talen!" gene or "intel-
ligence" gene.
Prop c r ti es of Heterozygot es
A seventh non -Mendelian law is the recognition that domin ance and recessive-
ness are only two simple relationships to be expressed in the phenotypes of hetero-
zygotes. There are other possibilities, realized in nature, beyond simply one
parental phenotype being fuUy expressed in the heterozygous offsprin g (dom i-
nant) and one paren tal phenotype being absent in those offspring (recessive).
One can fnd, for example, instances where the offspring express a phenotype
interme diate between the two parents. This would seem to mimic the pattern of
blend ng inherit ance, and is known as incomplete, or partial, dom inance.
More commonly, both parental phenotypes are expressed in the hybrid off-
spring, a situation known asco-dominance. Th is is frequently the case for biochem-
ical phenotypes, in whch alleles code for two different forros of an enzyme, and a
heterozygote expresses them both. In the case of th e ABO blood group system,
three alleles combine into genotypes six ways. The gene, at the tip of chromosome
#9, codes for an enzyme that adds a fifth sugar to a chair of fout; attached to a mol-
eeule on the surfaee of a red blood eell. AHele A adds one sugar, allele B adds a
different sugar, and allele O adds no sugar at al1. Allele O is recessive to A and B
(thus genotypes Aa and AA yicld the same phenotype, and gcnotypcs BB and BO
yield the same phenotype), but A and B areco-dominan t-hence the ABblood typc.
Thu s, the phenotype may not be easiIy predictable[rom the combination of
alleIespresento
Plciot ro py
w hle th ere ma y be gene s that affect tho se traits in certain predictable ways,
there is an importan! generalization we can make abou t gene action. Our eighth
non -Mendelian law: Sincegenes work in nested physiological pathways, they never
havejusi a single effea. This is eaUed pleiotropy, th e complex systemie effeets of a
single gene.
Th e product of the gene that causes phenylketonuria, or PKU, is involved in
. metabolizing nutrients; its failure causes a buildup of otherwise tran sient chem-
eals ealled phenylketones. lt was reeognized in th e 1950s that the disease eould be
treated diet eticaLIy; but when Ieft untreated, it becomes a significant genetic cause
of retardation . But that's not the only symptom: there are also problems with the
skin (eczema), depigment ation, dental anomalies, and personality.
As we will see later, a well-known gene conferring resistance to malaria also
causes sickle-cell anemia. And sickIe-cell anemia itselfhas a variety of symptoms,
 70 CHAPTE R 4 W H Y D O 1 LO O K LIKE T H E C ABL E G U Y, DA D DY?
affecting nearly evcr y p art of the body. It has also been suggested that a gen e con-
ferring resistanc e to tube rc ulosis also causes Tay-Sachs disease, more co mmon in
eastern Euro pean Iews th an in other pop ulations.
Thi s th rows an important ligh t on p opul ar scenari os of, for example, "Intell-
genee gene s:' If such genes exist, the question to ask is, What else do they do?:
Make you more likcly to develop sch izophreni a?, Dispose you to heart disease? or
alcoholism ?
Ge nes opera te with in a system , and their effects are trade-offs You can'r
cha nge one eIernent with out affecting others.
The flip side ofplciotrop y (on e gen e with multiple effeets) is episasis (several
gene s contributing to th e sam e effect) so tha t one gene may conceal th e effect of
an other gen e. In th e ABO blood gro up discusseda bove. the genet c variation
en codes what h appens to a fourth suga r at the end of a mo leeule 00 the ceU sur-
face. But supp ose th ere is no four th sugar at all beeause of a mutation in the gene
th at adds it on (call it the H gene, with a recessiv e allelc, h). An hh in dividual, with
n o four th sugar for th e ABO genes product to work on, wo uld always look Iike
type O antigeni cally because although the ABO enzymcs m ay be there waiting to
work, they have no subs trate up on which to work. (This is called the Bombay phe-
notype, after th e p lace it was f irst discovered.)
Now suppo se th is perso n nee ds a blood tran sfusion. Mat ch ed to typ e O.
suddenly there is blood ~vith cells con tain ing four-sugar chain s in the circul atory
system. And now the en zym es have something to work on, so th ey begin convert -
ing the type O blood into the recipien ts real ABO blood type. But th at new
bloo d type is not recogn ized as "self" by th e immunological system, because th e
irnmune system h as never enc ou n tered it be fore, so the body rejects and attacks
the ncw cells.
Th is is of cc ur selife-threate njng, and is a resuIt of th e h allcle ma sking the
p hcnotyp e and gen otype of the ABO gene .
I m p rinting
Mendel's Laws assume th at a gene in a sperm is equivalent to th e same (ho mo lo-
gou s) gene in an egg. Actu ally, however, pattern s of gene expression .m ay differ in
the sperm and egg, and sorne genes require both a male an d a fem ale eopy of th e
gene to be p resen toA sm all reg ion on the long arm of hum an chrom osome 15 is
occ asionally delered, with characteristic pa tholog ical resuIts. If th e del eted ch ro-
m osome comes fr om the father, and the on ly functonal copy is from the mother,
th~ resu lt is Prade r-\Villi syn drome (eharacterized by obes ty, small hands and
feet, and delay ed develop m ent ). If th e deleted chrom osomc is the mother's , an d
the only functional copy is from fath er; the result is Angelman syn dro me (ch arac-
terized by seizures, laugh ing. p oo r rnu scle tone, and severe mental retardation). If
the patient has two int act ch ro m osomes 15, bu t bo th come from the egg (which
rarely happens, a condition known as maternal uniparental disomy , Prader- WiIli
syn drome also resul ts. An d if th e pa tien t has patern al unip aren tal diso my, the
result is again An gelman syn d ro m e.
Tbe Molecular Genomic Basis of Heredity 71
The explana tion seerns to be that the body reouires one paternal and one
maternal copy ofcertain genes. and they are difierent. Somehow ch ro mosomes are
bioche mica lly marke d (or imprinted) with the ir or igin as the y pass through the
geno me of a sperm or an egg into the next generation. Th e irnprinting is reverscd
or reset every gen eration. i
Extra -n u clea r Inheritance
Our last non -Mendelian Iaw involves recognizing that although th e nucIeus ofthe
cell ha s th e genes sequestered within t, the re is still a little bit of gene tic informa -
tion th at is inherited aIong with the cyto plasm of th e cell. In particular. the cyto -
plasm contain s organelles called mitochon d ria whose func tion is to generate
metabolic ene rgy for the cells function. .
Each mitochondrion, however, ha s its own gene s-37 of them, th ree ord ers of
magnitude fewer th an th e numb er of genes in the nu cleus. Several diseases are
known to be cause d by alterations in th ese mit ochondrial genes .
Mit ochondrial genes. being outside th e nucleus, are exempted from m eiosis
and crossing-o ver, In fact, whe n sp erm and egg unite, th e spe rm's mitochondria
gene rally do not become n corporated into th e new zygote-they com e soleIy
from the egg, from m other.
Thi s creates a bizarre situ ation: although you are gene tically equally related to
your mother and to your father, that is aet ually only true for the n uclear gen es
(wh ich of eourse comprises th e vast m ajori ty of what we me an by "genetc") Mit o-
chondrially. you are a clone ofyou r mother; and unreIated to yourjather-for only
th e egg contribute d your m itochond rial DNA.
Mitochondrial DNA (mt DNA ) also cha nges at a far grcater rat e than nuclear
DNA. Where you are gener ally about 1- 2% genetically different frorn a ch mpa n-
zee or gorllla, your rntDNA is abo ut 8-10% different from that of a chimpanzee or
gorilla. Th is also means tha t th ere are a few detectable differences fro m pe rso n to
person in a segment of m itocho nd rial DNA. wh ere there would be virtua lly none
in a comparable segm ent of nuclear DNA. Co nsequently. rntDNA h as taken on
great sign ificance as a research tool in the study ofhuman gen etic history.
T H E MOLECULAR GENOMI C BAS IS OF HEREDITY
O ne of the goals of modern scienc e is reductonsm , to explain particular phe -
no mena as just speciaI cases of more gen eral pr incipIe s. Perh aps th e mo st success-
fuI example was Isaac Newtons reduction of diverse exam ples of gravit ation al
attraction , like apples falling and pl anets circling, to ma th em atics. Sorne biologists
believe th at since hununs are simply a spccial case of lfe, all human exis t ~ncc and
behavior sho uld only be described by biological laws. Thi s is true only to a limited
extent, for although biological laws cover humans, hu m ans also transcend them in
certain ways. Those same biologis ts would be very relu ctant to agrec th at since life
is jus t a special case of chemistry, all things bological sho uld be described and
subsu med under chemical laws!

72 C H A PTER 4 W H Y DO 1 LO O K Ll KE THE CA BLE G U Y, DADDY?
And yet, par tly that is what hap pened ruring the last ha lf of the twenticth
century. The basic principies ofheredity were rcduced to chemistry, by de termn-
ing that gene s are composed ofDNA (deoxyr ibo nucleic acid ), and identifying its
st ructu re, the famous "double helix" This was accomplished by th e famous work
ofWatson and Crick in 1953. which ushered in the age of molecul ar biology, an d
for whi ch they won th e Nobel Prize. . within genes. the vast majority of the DNA consists of untra nslated regionsand
To un derstan d evolut ion, we need to understand wh at genes are and how they
wor k, and how they cha nge. The cells work is carried out by a diver se class of
mol ecules ealled prot ein s. Beeause of their importance, ubiquity, and diversity, it
was widely thought int o the 1950s that they compr sed th e gene tic nst r uctions
the mselve s. But protens are the cells brawn, no t the brains. The info nnation is the
DNA. Th e ques tion, then, is, How does the info rm aton in the DNA beeom e
implem ented as protei n ? Protein s are polym ers, that s, long ehains built up of
sim ple sub un its. The subunits are ami no acids , of wh ich there are twenty different
kinds. Pro teins can ran ge in size from a few am ino acids to several th ousan d, and
can have any of twcnty different option s at any po sition ; obviously, the n, the y can
be very d iverse.
Mole cu lar genctics makes extensive use of metaphors from language. Physi-
eist Erwi n Schr din ger famo usly suggested in his 1944 book ealled What Is Lije?
that cellular p roce sses could be understood as a "code,' with information in gen es
eornm unicatcd to th e rest of the cell, regulating its func tion ; the phrase "genetic
code" has been with us ever sinee. Ever s nce, the domina nt met aph ors of molecu-
lar genetics have been de rived from linguistics. Now that we know th e gene tic
inform ation is 's tored in DNA, we talk of It being "transcr bed" into me ssenge r
RNA (mRNA), "cdited" to m aturity and funct ionality, an d "trans lated" into pro.
tein. A gene is an information al segment of DNA, a piece of DNA ultim ately
resp onsible for carryi ng out a bio logcal fun cti on . The field of genetics centers on
the st udy of gen es.
Tho m as Hun t Morgan's researeh on the relationsh ip between fruit fly genes
and eh rom osom es early in the twenti eth ccn tur y pro duee d an overarching sim ile
to describe tha t relationship: genes were arrayed on ch romosom es lke beads on a
string. That powe rfu l image rema ned the do mi nan t view until the 1990s and the
emergencc of a new fcld, genomics.
The genome is th e to talityof DNA in a single eell (teehnically, a haploid celi-
a gamete). Gen om ics, then, is the study ofthe DNA. not restricte d simply to fu nc-
tion al entities, or gene s. As the geno me has bee n exam ined , two important
observations have overturned the "bead s on a string" image. First, the genome ha s
muc h string and few beads. As we will see shortly, only abo ut 1- 2% ofthe gcn om e
is actuaUy co ding sequence. And second, the genes themselves, being strerches of
DNA, are simply special cases ofthe genome. In other words, th e bea ds are them-
selvcs m ade of str ng. . this mutation will be unfavora ble, and the intaet duplicated genes will be reta ined
The Hum an Geno m e Projeet was u nde r taken in 1989 to generate th e ent ire
human DNA seque nce, and it aecomplished that goal (or nearly so) in 2000. Sinee
about 75% ofth e h uman gen orne consists ofintergenic DNA, 0 1" the DNA between
\1
I
The Molecular Genomic Bass of Heredity 73 I
\
genes. it is important to understa nd the othe r kinds of DNA in th e human ge.nome. I
And of the 25% of the genome that comprises genes. only about 7% of that IS cod-
ing sequence. For example, the gene called DMD (Duehenne m uscular dystrophy)
codes for dystrophin, a protein whose failure is the cause of th e di sease. The gene
itself spans 2,400,000 bases- but the fu netional mRNA is only 14,000 bases. Even
introns, which are edted out of the mRNA.
So the re is an inefficient utili zation of DNA th rougho ut the genome, with so
Iittle DNA-perhaps 2% of the entre geno me-actually bein g translated into pro -
tcln (and even f we extend the idea ofDNA function beyond pro teln cod ing, still
vcry littl e of th e DNA actually gets used) . An other charaeteristic of the genom e is
its pervasive redundan cy, which wiII have conse quences for th c proeesses of
mutatio n.
Tha t ultimately s why we spend sorne time grappling with molecular gene t-
ies. We are interested in evolution, and mo lecular gene tics provides th e engine of
genetic novelty for evolution .
There are two bread dasses of repetitive DNA: localized and nterspersed,
About 5% of the hu man genome eonsists of regions around the middle of each
ehro mosome, called satellite DNA. It is DNA that has no obvous funct on in the
tr aditional sense, and can tolerate sub stantial change with no apparent ill effeet. It
is generally a simple base sequence, repeated thousands an d thousands of times.
Sorne DNA elernents can be removed and reint egrated elsewh ere, by a p rocess
called transposton. These are known as mobile genetic eleme nts, or tran sposons.
Intersper sed rcpetitlve elements ar e odder still. The best known is a j -base-
pair sequence called Alu, of which the re are abo ut a milli on eopie~, sea~tered
appare ntIy at random throughout th e gen cme, and each one dead, non-fun ctional.
Alu seque nees are still beng generated , by a pro cess called retrotransposition.
Somew he re in th e genome, a fun etion al "maste r Alu'' gene is tra nscribed: its RNA
copies are reverse-trallscribed baek into DNA copies, and th ose are integrated else-
where in th e geno m e. But the million dead. func tionless Alu sequences take up a
significantly larger proportion of the genome than DNA coding sequences do ! .
Even th e gene s tbemselves show patterns of red undan cy. A gene is generally
not found in isolation but rather exists as apart of a gene fam ily, a cluster offunc-
tional DNA sequences th at tend to make sim ilar products . A fundamental proee ss
of change in the gen ome involves th e tandem duplication of a block of DNA. so
th at two identical genes are now next to one another-in essence, a "rubber stamp"
pro cess.
Ove r man y generatons, new mutation s (cha nges to the DNA seque nce) will
spontaneously arisc in the duplicated gene . This has th ree po ssible conseque nces.
If for sorne reason, it is better to have two copies of th e gene than just one, th en
and perpetuated. Alternatively, if it is ju st as good to have one eopy as it is to have
two, the n mu tations mlght eripple th e duplie ate gene, with no ill effeet to the
organism, whic h still has a fun ction al copy. In th is case, we would find a DNA

74 C HAP T ER 4 WHY DO 1 LO OK LI KE T H E C AF: . E G UY. DA DDY ?
sequence in the genome that Iooks very much like the gene ncxt to it, but can not
make a functionaI product; it Is calIed a pseudogene. The third opt ion is that muta-
ti~ns to t.he copied gene might alter the gene produ ct so that it does something
~hghtly difEerent, perhaps in a speclalized contexto i this is beneficial to the organ -
rsrn, then we would exp ect to see clusters of sim ilar genes together in th e genome.
Wc can sce the effects ofmolecular evolution in the genes for hem oglobin, the
best-kn own gcncrc system in our species. Hemog lobin con sists of an iron -bin d-
ing pcrphyn n ring and the protein products of two sets of gen es. The bcta-globin
genes, on ch rom osome 11. pro duc e half of the hemoglobin pro ten, the one that is
146 am ino acids lo ng. Th e alpha-globn genes, on chromosorne 16, prod uce the
other half, a sct of proteins that are 141 amin o acids long.
T H E ALPHA-GLOBIN GEN E CLUSTER
The alpha globins compr ise seven genes, rnostly spaced about 4,000 bases (= 4
kiloba ses, or kb) apart, and scattered among them are over a dozen A lu repeats
(see Figure 4.1).
The flrst gene s kn own s zeta ((). Lkc cr, it mak es a 141M am ino -acid-long
hemoglobin com ponent, and 3 ou t of every 4 bases are identical to the c -globn
gen e. But ( is only fun ctonal early in emb ryonic life, when the oxygen transpon
requirements are qu ite different ; a , by contras t, is tu rned on du ring the sixth
mont h of fetal life and remains on through ad ulthood.
Next s a pseudogene of ( (0/(1, read "pseudo-zeta-one"), a very similar copy
of it, yet con taining a termina tion codon early in the coding scque nce, which pre-
vents it from making a func tionaI globin proten. The n "le encounter pseudo-
alph a-Z ('Va2), an ancient , beaten -up copy of alpha, whose sequence sirnilarity to
alph a was actuall y d scovered by computer analysis. Pscud o-alpha-l (\Va l ), on the
o ther hand, bears a str ong similarity to a , alth o ugh con taining nu merous features
that shut it clown. Next come a 2 end c I, w h iden tical coding scq uences (they
differ slightly in non coding sequence), both maki ng the a -glob in component of
hemog lobin. And finally, there is theta (9), a gene abou t as sim ilar te Cl as is em bry-
onic (, and itself makinga pr oten, bu t of unk nown fun ction.
Wh at we see here ar e th e results of ali three conseq uence s of the "rubber-
stamp" of tand em duplicato n at work. The two a genes make the sa me protein: (
lJfal a2 al el
= - _l t=,
-
3.7 kb
Punct ona gene
= Pscudogenc
A lu repeat
Figure 4.1.
I
I~
Mutaon 75
and 8 make simila r, but distinctly different, pr oteins, and the pseud ogenes do
nothing. More tha n that, however, we see ho w biological novelty is genera ted
geneticaUy: Over time, genes can be copied, altered, and put to other uses.
MUTATIO N
Classical evolutionary theory, as developed in the first half of th e twentie th
century, begins, as Darwn d d, with a genetically variable po pulation . But these
variations are the knd that Mendel worked with: changes to the genes. The most
basic genet lc chang e is called a point rnutation, the substitutio n of one base for
another somewhere in the DNA. Sckle-cell ane mia, for example, is caused by a
ponr m utation in the sxth cod on of the beta- globin gene on ch romosome 11,
leadng to the substitution of the amino acid valine for glutamic acid in the
protein.
Since most DNA is not genic, it follows th at most point mu tat ions are
not expres sed phenotypicalIy. Th ey have no effect, and simply accumulate over
time in the specie s. On the other hand, mutations th at occu r in genes will tend
lo affeel the funetionin g of the gene adversely and tend lo be weeded out by
natur al selection. We find, ther efore, that when we compare DNA sequences
bctween species, thc intergeni c DNA is the ma st divergent , genic noncod ing l..
sequen ces are less dfferent fro m one ano th er, and codi ng sequen ces are the
most sim ilar.
Anothe r kind of gene tic change involves macroscale breaka ge and recomb-
nation of a chr omosome. Th is is actually visible in the rncroscope, while point
mu tatio ns can only be inferred. Thus, a human cell has 23 pairs of ch romo som es
and a chim panzee cel!has 24 pairs. But humans have a large chro mo som e (#2) that
chimpanzees lack, and chimpanzees have two small chrorn osome s that humans
lack. And when you plaee the two small chimp chromosomes end to end, you find
that they look just like the largc human chromosome. Apparently a chromosome
fusion has occ urred in the human lineage. ,
T his, however, is a marker of the human cond ition, not a cause of it. It cnables
you to tell whether the cells you are examin ing carne from a human or a chmpan-
zee: but it s not the cause of bipedalism , or braininess, or al1 of the ot her c1assic
adaptations of the human lineage. It was a rand om chan ge, with probably no effect
at alI on the expres sion of any genes.
Similarly, the gorllas chromosomes have unde rgone a translocation in which
the chro mo somes correspond ing to hum an 5 and 17 havc broken and rejoined
differentIy. Thus th e gorilla has no chr ornoso me eorrespon ding to h uman 5 or to
human 17; rather, it has one chromosome that is mos tIy 5 and partly 17, and one
that is mosIly 17 and parIly 5.
In addit ion to point m utation s and ch romosome m utatio ns, however, the
redundan ey of the genome produces another c1ass of muta tions : genomic m uta -
tlo ns. We have already noted transpo sition , retrotransposition, and gene dup lica-
tion . The se are three kinds of genomic mu tation s.
 76 C H A P T ER 4 WH Y D O 1 LOO K LIKE T H E C A BLE GUY, D A D D Y?
Another kind of genomic mutation is called strand slippage. While the precise
mechan ism is unknown, strand slippage seems to occur in reglons where there is
already sorne slight redundancy. It is as if while the DNA is being copied in prep-
aration for cell divisin, th e cellular machinery "forgets its place" and add s or
deletes a few subunits. Thus, a DNA sequence of CfGAAAG might be copied as
CTGAAAAAG. Thi s may be al least partly responsible for lhe genotyp e of fragilc-
X syndrorne, a leading cause of genetic retard ation in boys. Here, a bit of the
unt ranslated region of a gene called FMRl contains a region where CCG is
repeated from 10 to 50 times in normal people. In sorne people, however, this is
cxpand ed up lo 200 copies, quile possibly by strand s!ippage. These peop!e are
carr iers, for they do not manifest the disease. Their childrcn , however, may have
200-500 copies, which impairs translation of the RNA, and causes th e syndrome.
Other diseases, such as Hunt ington's chorea and myotonic dystrophy, have similar
causes-the expansin or multiplication of a simple repeat in a gene.
Finally, a mod e of mutation known as unequal crossing-over may have greater
potential for creative effects in the genome . The process of meiosis begins with the
intimate pairing of the corrcspond ng matern al and patern al chromosomes, which
th en cross over an d exchange gcnetic information, thus unlinkin g allele combina-
tlons, as we noted earlier. Thi s exchange is entirely reciprocal- no DNA is gained
or lost by cither chrom osome in the process- and i ~ predicated on the point-by-
point genetic correspondence of the appropriate regin.
The widespread existence of redundan cy, especially in gene famllies, yelds a
po ssibility for the pairlng mechan ism to be briefly "fooled" into pairing with a
sim ilar, but not corr ect, counterpart. Suppose, dur ing the meiotic processes, the
al globn gene on the paternal chrom osome 16 paired not with the a l globin gen e
on m ater nal chromosome 16, but with a 2 just beside it. A crossover would now
pro duce one chromosom e with 3 o -globn genes and one chromo some with just l .
This is prcciscly how the genotype for u-thalassemia, a blood disease foun d
mo stly in East Asia, and (like sickle-cell) conferring resista nce ro malaria, is gener-
ated. It may also be at work in the examp les oEfragile X. Huntington's chorca. and
myoton ic dystrophy given previously, complementing the strand slippage.
However, beyond harmful effects, this may also provide a comm on way to
generate more copies of genes that can take on new functions.
The point is th at molecular genetics is important as the ultimate source of
diversity that drives evolutionary change. Most changes are ha rmful, hut the
genetic system is cornplex, and there are a lot of ways for nature to alter it.
ME ANINGS F THE GENE AND GENETI CS
We have been using the word gene in the sense that it s used in molecular genetlcs,
as a piece of DNA with a recognizable structurc and/or function. lt is worthwhile
to note, however, that other .scientists, such as the Oxford University theoretical
biologlst Richard Dawkins, use the wordge ne in a very different sense. To Dawkns,
a gene is an abstract repllcator, som ething that makes copies of itse1f to leave in the
Meanngs of the Gene and Genetics 77
next generation. While this has spawned a great deal of writing and thought, it is a
concept foreign to most genetcsts.
There are other, hidden meanings in genes, as well. Genes are often regarded
as "uncaused causes"- dctermina nts of appearances and behavors, as f th eir
expression were invariant, their combinations were un important, and th e condi -
tions of life did not affect their expression. Perhaps one person has a gene for
violence" or a "gene for shopping. In this sense, genes take on a very pre-Mend e-
lian and prescientific meaning, that of an invisible "corc" or "essence" that makes
you what you are, and th at you can neith er resist nor tran scend. While therc is
sorne truth there (such as if you have the alleJes for Tay-Sachs dsease, you get
Tay-Sachs disease), it is very limited.
Most significantly, such a view tends to focus on individual alleles, rather than
on genQlypes, the diploid pairs that actually exists physically in the cell. The
physiological interaction between allele pairs s crucial in determ ining the pheno-
type. Often, as in sickle-cell anemia, it is bette r to be a heterozygote than to be a
homozygote of either form-which mean s that neither allele is superior. but their
combinations are important in determining survival and reprodu ction.
This essentialist view found its way into the Human Genome Project, which
was based on a medical model of the genome. in which each gene has a norma l
allele, and diseases are caused by rare deviant alleles. One could, with this model
in mind, sequence thc "normal allele" of each gene and have a map of what a
normal human is like- which was precisely what the Human Genome Project
proposed lo do in lhe 1980s.
Thls, however, assumes that diseases are the model for diversity, in which
most people share one normal form, and rare deviants have the disease. But th cre
s anothe r model that is probably more realistic. Consider th e blood group system,
ABO, in which there are thre e aIIeles and six genotypes: AA, Aa, BB, BO, AB,and
OO. None of these alleles is more norm al than the other s. In what sense, thcn,
would sequencing one of them be meaningful? JI would simply (and falsely) sug-
gest that normalcy encompasses a narrow range of DNA sequences, and devia-
tions from thar range tcnd to be pathologcal. which may be quite the opposite of
the truth! Many genetic systems are highly variable. and as we will see in the next
chapter, that variation may be good for both the organism and the individual.
More than that, people are dipIoid, and there appears to be something cru-
cially important about the state of having two sets of genetic information-not l
one, and not three- whose interactions are not understandable in term s of a single
linear DNA sequence. This is know n as dosage, the body's constraint on having
the precise amount of genetic material, deviations from which cannot be easily
tolerated. Having a third chromosome of what is normally a pair is generally
incompatible with survival, unlcss it is a very small one, like #21, an extra repre-
sentat ve of which leads to Down's Syndrome. Lacking one chromosome of a par
is even worse.
Thus the combinations into which the genes enter is of vital importa nce for
determi ning their physiological function and expression. To talk about single
 78 C HA PT E R 4 W HY DO 1 LOOK LIKE T H E CA BLE GU Y, D A D D Y?
alleles as being be tte r or wo rse than one ano ther, or to talk abo ut a single DNA
sequcnce as being a blu eprint for a functi oning human ceU or b ody, is to mi s un -
derst an d and to undervalue critically the real impor tanc e of dosage in genetics.
How we talk abo ut genetcs s itself imp ortant in rcvca ling how we think
abou t it. T his is the field of serni ot lcs, or linguistic mea nings. Consider the meta-
phors and analogl es we have used in thi s cha pter, which are common in genetic
wrltl ng and thinking. The cell, whose import ance was revealed during the height
ofthe ind ustr ial revol ution, is like a machine-c-we talk of th e celIular ma chinery or
aj-paratus. We sp eak o f the genetic "code"- a metaph or so powerful tod ay that we
find it hard to talk abou t genetics any other way. But gen etics is n o t a cod e, it is ike
a code, in. sorne int crcs tin g ways. And we talk about DNA as "n form aton "-a way
of th in k.ing that was In trodu ced by mat he ma ticians in thc 1950s: These hav e been
irnme ns ely helpfu l as h euristics-c-devices th at help dem onstrate the properties of
Int er est. But these are m erely linguistic convention s and are not literalIy true: th ey
will all ultirnately reach the limits of the ir utility and b e replaced by new, an d more
accurate, descriptions an d other metap hors.
Fnally, there is meaning in genetics that can be seen in an odd qu estion : Is a
human egg a hody part or a body prod uet?
Approached simply from the stan dp oint of'bology or genetics, the qu estion is
me ani ngless: A human egg is a haploid gamete, a sp ecialized eell.
But in modero society; the questio n has a great dea l of m eani ng that tra n -
scends its genet ic m ean ing. In the United States, you can seH the essentially infi-
nite, replenishable products of your bo dy: notably, blood and sp erm. You cannot
sell your kid ney or you r eyeball. {The reason is tha t it would pro mote the sale of
body part s from poor to rich pe ople, whic h is now occurrng, with often tr agic
resul ts, in other parts of thc world.)
Th e field of rep roductive biology is a booming busin ess. and wealt hy infertile
cou ples m ay be able to spend tens of th ou sand s of do llars for hu man eggs. Sorne
have advertised $50.000 fcr eggs from women who meet hgh standards of nrel-
leet , athl eticism, and beauty (sho wing th e folk ideas about heredity at work!).
However, altho ugh eggs are homologou s to sperm , they are not as easily access ible.
It req uires hormone th erapy to prime th e eggs, an d surgery to ext ract th ern , So is
an egg m ore like a kid ney (in which case you can't be compensa ted for it) or like
spe rm (in wh ich case you can) ?
The answer, of course, is that an cgg is formally reeo gni zed as a bo dy producto
not a body parto In th at scnse, however, an egg h as becom e cultu rally const ruc ted -
th at is, although it is a natura l ob.iect. it ha s assumed meaning no t inherent in its
biological or gen etic properties.
REFERENCES AND FU RT H ER READI N G
Bcckwith, J. 1996. The hegcmony of the gene: Redu ctionism in m olecular biology. In The
Philosophy and History of Molecular Biology: New Perspectives, cd . S. Sarkar, 171- 183.
Dordrecht, The Nethcrlands: Kluwer.
References and Further Read ng 79
Beurton , P. R. Falk, and H. Rhelnbe rger, ed s. 2000 . The Concept ofthe Gene in Development
and Evoluon: norca and Epistemological Perspectives. New Yor k: Ca mbridge Uni-
versity Prc ss.
Collin s, F. S., A. Patr tnos, E. Iordan, A. Chakrevart, R. Ges teland, an d 1. Walters. 1998.
New goals for the U. S. Hu man Genome Project: 1998-2003 . Science282:682- 689.
Condit. C. (l999) The Meanings of the Gene: Public Debates About Human Heredity. Madi-
son: Unive rsi ty ofWisconsin Pre ss.
Enard, W , and S. Paabc 2004. Co mp arative pr imate geno mics. Ann ual Review ofG enomics
and Human Gene!ics 5:351-37 8.
Palk, R. 1986. W hat is a gene? Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 17:133- 173.
Pogle, T. 1987. The phenotypc deception : Influences of cIassical genetics 0 0 genetic para -
digms. Perspectivo in Biologyand Medicine 31:65-80.
Go od ma n , A., D. Heath, and M. S. Lnd cc, cds. 2004. Genetic Nature/Culture. Bcr ke1ey:
Unversiry of Californ ia Press.
Hub bard, R., and E. w ald. 1993. Expoding the Gene Myth. Boston: Beacon.
Lewontin, R. C. 1991. Biology as Destiny: The Doctrine ofDNA. New Yor k: Harper/Collios.
c..
Ma rks, J., J.-P. Shaw, C. Perez-Stable, W.S . H u. T. M. Ayres, C. Shen, and K. J. Shen . 1986.
The primate alpha-globn gene family : A paradgm of the fluid genome. Cold Spring
Harbar Symposia on Quantitative Biology 51:499-5 07.
Marks, J. 1992. Beads and string: Th e gen o mc in cvoluti onary thcory. In Molecular Appica-
tions in BiologicalAnthropology, ed. E. J. Devo r, 234-255 . New York: Cam bridg e Un -
versty Press.
Mark s, J. 1995. Huma nb iodversity: Genes, Race, and History. Piscataway, NJ: Ald ine Trans-
action.
Marks, J. 2009. The construction of Men del's Laws. Evolutionary Anthropology 17:250-253.
Mlller, W. K. D. Makova, A. Nekr utenko, an d R. C. Hard ison . 2004. Co m pa rative genom
ics. Ann uaI Rev ev ojGenomcs and Human Genetics 5:15-56 .
Moss.L, 2004. What Genes Carl't Do. Cambridge, MA : The MIT Pre ss.
Mllc r-Wllc, S. an d H. Rheinb erger, eds. 200 7. Heredty Produced: At the Crossroads of
Biology, Politia, and Culture, 1500-1870. Camb ridge . MA: The M IT Press.
Ncel, J. 1994. Physician to the Gene Pool. New York: Iohn Wiley.
Paa bo, S. 2003. The mosalc th at is ou r genome. Nature 421:409-41 1.
Sarkar, S. 1996. Decoding "cod ing"- lnformation an d DNA. BioSystems46:857-8 64.
Scheper- Hug hes , N. 20)0. The glo bal traffic in organs. Current An thropology 41:191-224 .
Spyropo ulos, B. 1988. 'Iay-Sach s carr iers and tu be rcu losis resst an ce. Nature 33 1:666.
Sua rez, E. D. 2007 . The rhet oric of informational mo lecules: Au thority and promscs in the
early study of molecular evolu tion . Scence in Context 20:1 -29.
Waller, J. 2003. Parent s a~d children : Id eas of he rcd ity in the 19th century. Endeavour
27:51- 56.

C H AP TE R 5
Are We Here? If So, Why?
(On Issues of Micro evolution)
THEM E
A populatio n is like a supc rorgansm, perpetu ating itself acro ss genera tions, and
pcrmitting its genetic featur es to be studied. Genetic th eory can explain the exis-
tence of speci fic featur es that were good and useful (by selection) and of those that
were not good and useful (by' d rift) . Hu man genc tics is a science with important
cultur al rneanln gs, however; and invest ing it with unquestioned authority about
kinsh ip and descent- who we are and what we are-can obsc ure its weakn esses.
DO THINGS EXIS T FOR A REASO N?
Tha ts no t a sc ientifc question, but a ph ilosoph ical one, and yet on e tha t intru des
to sorne extent on evoluti on. Why do es this book exist?: (1) Without th e publisher
and prtnt er, it would not exst, but the y don 't explan the existen ce of this book in
~ a r l ic ll lar ; (2) without the auth or, it would no t exf st. bu t all I really did was th nk
it up and rype it; (3) withou t th e prevtous generation s of accumulated knowledge
of biological anth rop ology, it would not exist, for 1 would have had nothn g lo
write about; and (4), f m atter and th e un iverse did not exst, neither would th s
book, altho ugh th at would be the leasl of our problems.
Aristotle rccog nized tha t a11 of th ese are linked nto a chain of causality, The
pro duction and m anu facture of th e book an d its impression onto wood pulp com-
prise its efficien t and m aterial causes. My writ ing the book is its forma l cause. And
whatever com pelle d m e to wri te t, or at least ben ignly allowed me to do so, would
be its fina l causes.
Of cou rse, we don't really know if there was a fina l cau se per se, becau se we
don't know whether 1 wrote the book spo ntaneously an d volitionally, of my own
free will, or whethe r I was compelled to do it by th e forces of th c universe.
So wh at th is analys is con ceals s th e complcxity of th e assumption that there
is ndeed a rea son for evcryt hng and thar rbings aren't ~he way they are for just no
\ '
Principa l Abstraction: The Gene Pool 81
reason at all. In othe r words, is there reaHy a purpose for any specifc shit, or does
it just "happen"! Much of m icro evolution is devo ted to grapp ling with th at very
quest ion.
PRI NCI PAL ABST RACT IO N: TH E G ENE POOL
A popul ation can be thought of as a group of organisms that tend to live and
breed together. It can be as sm all as a group of m igra nts and as large as a spec es.
Microevolu tion is the study of how such populations perpe tuate themselves
genetically. As we saw in the last chap ter, at a specific genetic site or locus, an
organ ism can be d escri bed by a pair of genes, ts genotype. By extension, at a
spedfic locu s, a populatio n can be described by the prop ortion of dfferent alleles
possessed by ts rnembers. Thus, for the ABO blood group locus, a population
m ght ha ve a frequency of O.65 for the O allele, 0.23 for the A allele, and 0.12 for
the B aUele.
These num bers describe the genetic composition of the population for that
locus, an abstr act mathematical sum mation genes ofal! the eggs an d sperm, ca1led
the gene pool. (It is a ' pool" in the sense of a surnmation, not in the sense of swirn-
min g.) The gen e pool is the focus of population genetics, and its dyna m ics thro ugh
time constitute the study of m icroevolution .
Th e greate st strength of po pulation genetics is also its greatest weakness: it
fals lo problem atlze the phenotype. In other words, t takes th e ph enotype for
granted and d oes no t acknowledge that there are ques tio ns to be asked abo u t it,
like where it comes from- the phenotype he re is anon -iss ue, ano n- problem. In
focusing on the gene pool, it avods the en tire question ofbodi es. The gene poo l
will be tracked th rou gh time, and ts con tents sampled in pairwi se combina-
tions representing geno rypcs, as surrog ates for organisrns. The simplifying
assumption here wiII be that the phe notype is en tirely p red ictable from the
genotype.
The basic principIe, from whic h al] othe r ideas flow in popu lation gene tics,
was codfied in the early 19005, independently by a Briti sh rnat he matici an and a
Gerrnan biologist, Hardy and Weinbe rg. The Hard y- Wein berg law is an equilib-
rium law, relating thecomposition ofth e gene po ol to th e organisms {that s, th e
distribution of genotypes) populating it. It is, in large mea sure, a simple algebraic
extensin of Mendel's work.
The Hardy- Weinberg law says, first , that there is a simple relationship between
the jreouenc es 01 alldes in the gene pool and the frequencies 01genotypes in the
pop ulation; and second, that this relaonship will be perpetuated indefi ntely in
[u ture generatto ns. If Mendelian genetics is the onl y force acting on a gene pool,
then it will not , change. Th e allele frequencies and genotype frequencies will be
constant and self-perpetuating over the generatlons, indefmitely-as long as Men-
delian genetics is th e only factor in operation. In fact, the y will remain in the same
pro por tions indefin itely-the Hardy-Weinberg law describes a stable populaton,
a population in eq uillbrium, unchanging.
 82 CHAPTER 5 ARE WE HERE? IF SO, WHY?
w hy might the Hardy-Weinberg law not be in effect? There were several
unarticulated assumptions in the Hardy- Weinberg law that need now to be artic u-
lated, so we can look at th ereffects on the population.
GENE FLOW
One implicit assumption is that the population is genetically isolated from oth er
populations. A wave of irnmigration might well affeet the gene pool, and make it
different from tbat of the previous generaton's residents. \Ve call ths factor gene
fl ow, the genetie con tact between populations, or interbrecding. The conscquenec
of nterbreedng is that different genetic variants may enter the gene pool. Its effeet
is to m ake two populations more genetically alike.
In the mod ern world, of course, gene flow is a majar force shaping human
populations. It has been estimated th at African American popuJations have (on
the average) around 20% of their gene pool descende d from Europeans. Similarly,
desp ite having certain dst nct ons of their own gene pool, everywhere that the
gene pool of [ewish populations has been studied, it is more similar to that of
neighb oring non-lewish populations than to other [ewish populations. This, of
course, suggests long-term gene tic eonta ct. Gene flow s conseqncnt ly also a eohe-
sive force among populations of a single species. Por one spec es to splrt into two,
gene flow will have to be broken.
INBREEDING
Another impli cit assumption of Hardy- Weinbe rg is that all matings are equally
likely, a condition called random mating, the equal pr obability of an individual of
on e genotype mating with any other, In reality, of course, our mat tngs are highly
patterned. We tend to mate at h gher-than-randorn frequencies for many features:
relgon , height, ethncity, education, and language- to name just a few. This alter -
native to random mat ng is known as positive assortative mating. Its drect oppo-
ste, negative assortative mating, or mating atlower-than-random frequencies with
people who match us-is hardly kno wn in human populations. Apparently the old
saw fro m physics-e-that opposites attract-does not apply well to human mat ing
patterns. Mating with relatives woul d certainly inc reas e the probability of match-
in g for any particular feature-eith er genetic or not. Mating with relativcs is a .
spe cial and ext reme case of assortative mating, and is known as inbreeding .
The result of inbreeding is to dr ive a population toward homozygosity. This is
because homozygotes breed true, but heterozygotes do noto Consequently, ifhet-
crozygotes ten d to mate with one another, thcir proportion in the population will
actually decrease through time, unlike the proportion of homozygotes.
This does not dir ectIy affect th e frequ encies of alleles in the gene pool but
merely redirects their combinations into genotypes. An inbred population has
more homozygotes than wou ld be expected by the Hardy-Wcinberg law. The indi-
vidual prod uct of inbreeding is mo re likely to be homozygous- having nherited
NaturalSelection 83
the same allele from a common ancestor on both sides of th e family-than a less-
inbred individual would be. Consequently, arare recessive allele is more likely to
be expressed in an inbred individual-bein g homozygous, having inherited the
rare allele on both sirlesfrom the same ances tor- than in others.
It is important to distinguish inbreeding, a genetic state, from incest, a cul-
tural act. Inbreeding involves reproduction, specc ally the progeny of genetic
relatives, which is actually a subset of all relatives (who would subsume in-laws
and spouses). lncest, on the other hand, is specifically about sexual activity
(regardless of whether offspring are produced), and is defined culturally, forb id-
ding re1ations between in-laws, for example, in spite ofnot being generc relatives.
This distinction becomes apparent at the social distance represented by first
cousins. Although the progeny of such a union wouId be inbred, the un ion itself
may or may not be considered incestuous. In Victorian England, it was common
for the wealthy dasses to marry their first cousins (thus keeping the fortune In the
family). As we will see, Charles Darwin marred his own first cousin. Indeed, the
first cousin is a preferred marriage partner in many of the worlds cultures. In
sorne cultures, certain first cousins are preferred partners, and others are consid-
ered incestuous mat ings. Interestingly,a large survey of the progeny of first-cousin
marriages failed to detect a signflc ant incre ase in genetic or general health pro b-
lems, and a study of IceIanders found that the most prolific coup les were about
fourtb or fifth cousins.
NATURAL SELECTION
Another Hardy- Weinberg assumption is that the possessors of all genotypes are
equally efficient at surviving and reprodu cing. Perhaps, however, th at assumption
does not hold . If so, it would represent the genetic equivalent of Darwin's natural
se!ection: the differential surv ival and repro duction of organisms with particular
geootypes.
Natural selection, in Dar win's writing, was specifically about phenotypes-
features of an organism that gve it a greater likelihood of surviving and repro duc-
ing. But more importantly, it was abou t nherited phenotypes, those that are passcd
on over the generations, even though Darwin had no kno wledge of modern genet-
ics. In population genetics, we rarely have the ability to link a specific phenotype
to its underlying genetic variation. To the extent , however, th at there is a relation-
shp betwecn a par ticular structure or biochemical configuration con ferr ing a
benefit, and genetic variati on underlying it, the gcnctc and physical cnce pnons
of natural selection can be considered synonymous.
Although selection is the only me chanism we kn ow of that can prod uce adap-
tation in nature.. it is remarkably difficult to dem onstra te its action rigorou sly.
After all, it operates on slight dfferences over long periods of time. Cons ider wha t
we would need to demonstrate it: (1) a cons istent bias of survival or repr oduction,
stretching over several generations; (2) a genetic basis for the feature of interest;
(3) a difference bctween the original and descend ant po pu laton s, (4) a plausible
84 C HAP T E R 5 AR E W E H ERE ? Ir. SO, WHY?
relan onsh p betwe en th e bio logical feature of intere st an d th e environ rnent, pro -
ducing th e bias; an d (5) evidence that the environmen tal factor related to th e bo-
logical feature actually did pro du ce the bias.
In practice, it is nearly impossible to demon strate all o f th ose thi ngs toget her,
so we often reIy on a com bination of observation, experiment, deduction, and
p artly on arg urncnts of plausibility. Thus, for example, we see in the fossil record
th at the hum an b rain q uad rupled in size over a per iod of about th ree million years.
We can see th ts d fference b etween th e bipedal Au stralop thecus afarensis and our-
selves. We can also be quite con flde nt tha t th is d ffercnc e is rooted in gene tic
instructions. We can plausibly relate brain en larg eme nt to ntelhgence, whlch
cou ld be useful in su rv ival-c-altho ugh the brain enIargement migh t conce ivably
h avc had its advan tage in o the r ways, such as pro ducing lan gu age, with its
p rob lem- solving cap abiliti es as an added bonus. As for feature s (1) and (5) aboye,
we just have to take those on faith-and recogn ize th at any other explana tion
th..i u natural selectio n for the hu m an brain expansion would h ave far grea ter dffl-
culties in being prove n.
Even th e bes t- accepted cases of se1ection in action are less th an 100% rigo r-
ousIy proved. One of the chestnuts of biology textb ooks is th c case of ind ustrial
mel anism in the pepp ered m oth, Bistcn betu iaria. O ver th e course of a cent ury, as
soot beca me dep osited on tree tr unks in England, th e darker form (carbonaria)
becam e m or e prominent because ofbird predation on the lighter form (typ ica); as
pollution was red uced . the ligh ter form became more com mon again, concealcd
by the lich en (a crusty fungu s) on the tree b ark. In fact, h owever, the pre cise influ -
en ce of bird pred ation ha s never been satisfactorily demonstrated . There is cer-
tainly a bias of su rvival an d reproduction, there is certainly a genetic bas is to the
dfference, there is an observable change in the populaton over time (and in parall el
in American moth p op ulatons), bu t it s still u ndear exactly what th e envlron -
m ent al feature promoting it was. It ha s some th ing to do with soot and select ive
predation.
Certainly the selective agen cy of pest icides is better known in th e develop -
men t of resistant st rains of in sects. In the Europ ean land snail (Cepaea nemoralis)
the rclati onship between she ll colo ration an d sclection in particular en vironments
by preda tors is well understo od . And a 30-year stud y of th e finch species ( Geosp za
Jortis and Geospiza seandens) on th e Galpago s sland of Daph ne Major has dem-
onst rated the relanon sh p b etween enviro nmental cha nges , food preferences, and
size and shape of the beak about as weUas anyone couId possbly'hopeo
GENETIC DRIFT
O ur last Hardy- We inherg assumption is that the popul ation size is large enough
to avod random de viatio ns by chanceoIf you were to flip a coin fou r times, what
wou ld you exp ect -two head s and two tails, or some th ing oth er tha n two heads
and two tals! In fact, two head s and two tails is th e most likely single outcome, but
f YOil sum together a11 the probabilities of the othe r alternatives-four heads,
Genetic Drift 85
th ree hea ds and one rail, thr ee tails and on e he ad, and fou r tails-their comb ine d
probability is hgher than two h eads and two tails. So you are actu ally mor e likely
to get so rneth ing other than two heads and two tails in fou r flips than you are to get .
the two he ads and two tails outcom e that s your expectation , being the mo st likcl y
single outcome.
Wha t th is mea ns is th at perhaps a de tectable variation from the Hard y-
Weinbe rg equ ilibrium is du e to a random accident of samplin g the gene pool. The
smaller the po pu lation, the more likely it is to deviate from the mathem atical
expectations. We call such deviation s genetic drift. Genetic d rift mig ht acco u nt
for ou r resul ts simply as sampli ng error, a run of bad Iuc k, so to speak. It Is well
kn own in microevolut ion in th rec contex ts, all of which are rn athem at c ally
equivalent: the foun der effect, deviations from Mende lian ratios, and the fixaton
of neut ral alleles.
The first case is the fou nder effect (or Sewall Wright effect, after the Am erican
pop ulation gen e clst who first explored th e m at hem atics of t), and involves the
case in which a su bpopula tion is not a perfect gene tic replica of the larger po pu la-
tion fro m whic h it is derived. Th is mi ght come about in the context of em graton.
or as th e afterrnath of a populatio n cra sh.
Imagine a popul ation of50 peopIe (with 100 total alleles in its gene pool ). Two
alleles are presento A l and A, . Allele Al has a frequency (p) ofO.99, and allele A, has
a frequ ency (q) of O. 1.Thi s of course mean s th at the pop ulation is composed of 49
AA homozygotes and on e A]A2 heterozygote. We wouId expe ct, va the Hard y-
Weinberg law, th at th ls p opu lation would conti nu e to p erpet uate its elf inde finitely
at the same proportions. But sup pose th e population crashes-for wh atever rea -
son-to 20 people. Now there are 40 total alieles. The que stion is, did the one
heterozygote m ake it? If so. the A2 allele is no longer 1 ou t of 100, but 1 out of 40,
so P ~ .975 and q ~ .025. If the hetero zygote did n't make t, the allele frequencies
have changed to p ~ I and q ~ o. Either way, the gene pool has changed, simply by
ma nipulating the number of lndvidual s.
The mag n itude o th e change-that is, th e extent to whic h the new, sma ll
po pulation deviate s from the proportons found in the original po pulation -
depends upon ho w srmll the new population is. If th e ori gina l popuI ation cra she s
from 50 to 5 people (now with 10 total alleles, rather tha n 100), then the frequency
of A2 will be eit her O (ir th e he tero zygote d id no t sur vivc) or .10 (if the heterozy-
gote did survive). And f the frequency of the alleles after the cra sh is now .90 and
.10. that is what th e Hardy- Weinberg equili brium will no w tend to preserve .
This random deviatio n from p recisely replicating the original gene pool is
dentcal whether the popu lation crash is du e to catast rophe, cm gratton. oc simply
subdivisio n. Many examples of this are known in hum an pop ulations. Por exam -
ple, porphyria variegata is a genetic d isease with a variable range of phenotypic
exp ression , ranging from virtually no symptoms to fits of abdominal pai n, dark
red urine, and delirium. It is believed to hav e affected King Geor ge III of Engla nd
and is also found rarely th rough out the world. O ne of the ori gin al Du tch settlers
of South Africa had th e gen e. h owever, and as a result, there is mo re porphyria
 86 C HA PTER 5 A RE WE H ER E? If~ SO, W H Y?
am ong whit e Sou th Africans of Dutch ancest ry (Afrikane rs) tha n in the rest of the
wo rld.
Smt larly, a mutation in a gene callcd BRCA1, that p red isposes wom en to
breast cancer, is foun d in people o f castcm European (Ashkenazi) }cwish ancestry
at approxim ately twentyfold higber p ropor tions than elsewh ere. And although
ove r 300 mutaticns have been fou nd in ths gene worldwide , mo st Ashkenazi [ews
with BRCAl have either ofj ust two m ut ations. This strongly suggests a popu lation
co nstriction, whic h p rod uced a founder effect.
It's the mathematics of geneucs. Mend el's ratios are pro bab tlsc : although
you can't p redic t the sex of an y specific act of fertilization , you kn ow that about
half of aU zygotes ar e XY boys and about half are XX girls, because half of th e
sperm cells contai n an X ch romosom e and ha lf of the sper m cells contain a Y
ch rornos ome . But sup pose a cu uple has just thre e ch ldren! Now they cannot
mathcma ticalIy pro d uce th e Mcndelian ratios (even if th ey tr y!). We all know
"Brady Bunch" fam ilies in wh ich rhe th ree children are ell boys or are aUgirls. As
the size of the famil y increases, the devi ations from expected propor tions becomes
sm aUer (agan, "The Brady Bun ch"). Mathe maticaUy, th is kind of rand om de va-
tio n from exp ected proport ions is equivalent to the founder effect in which the
d cscenda nt ge nera tio n is just not a perfectly representative sa mple of the earler
genera tion. Here the original population is th e very large n u mbe r of eh ild ren it
is p ossible to have, an d the d eviation is represented by the few ch ild ren actuaIly
produ ced.
Thu s, gene tic d rift can chan ge th e gene pool of a po p ulation quite slgnfl-
cantly. Since it is rand om: it w ll make pop ulations d fferen t from cach oth er, but
it will do so in a non -ad apti ve way. Its m agnitude is inversely propo rtional to the
popul atio n sizc, One of th e majar conseque nces of gcncttc dr ift ls th at since it is
rand a m, it m ay gover n th e spread of a feature that h as no ne t effeet (a neutral
mu tation ), or eve n sp read a "bad" feature randomly, whic h m igh t then be used by
the body in a new and di fferen t way.
SI C KLE C ELL
Siekle-cell anemia was d escrib ed in 19 10 by a ear diolog ist nam ed Jam es B.
He r r tck , who sp ecifically d escri bed red blo od cells in h is pa tien t that were
deformcd into the sha pe of a curved sword, or sickle. It was shown to be transmitted
as a s ing le gene in 1941. and shown to be th e resu lt o f a di ffernt str uc tur e of
the hernoglobin p rot ein in 1948-the first disease reliably assigned to a molecular
d is tu rbance . In .the m id -1950s, it was show n to be the resu lt spedfical1y of a
substitution of the am lno acid valine for the am ino acld glutamic acid in the
slxth position of th e 146 am ino acids of beta, or p ~globin , one of the two p rotein
corn po ne nts a f hemo glob in.
Hamozygotes for th e allele express the symptoms of sickle-cell anemi a. The
cha ngc in the am in o acid affects the propert ies of the ~ - globin molecu le so that it
does not m ove freely in the cell, but stacks up. Since a red blood cell, or erythrocyte,
Sck le Cell 87
is little more th an a bag of hemoglobin transpor ting oxygen inward into the body
and other gases ou rward, th e stacked hemoglobin gives the red blood cell differen t
propert ies. It now assumes a n gd, pointed shape (a "sckle" or perhaps a croissant}:
nstead ofthe ordinary roun d, biconcave disc (reminiscent of a bialy, a bread prod -
uct similar to a bagell.
No longer smocth and rounded, th e sick.led cells can not m ove as smoo thly
thro ugh th e capillaries of the circul ator y system. The y can clog it up, or sim ply
func tion so poorly tbat thev are removed from th e circulatory system through the
spleen, wh ose o rd inary functi on Is to recycle red blood cells after thetr I 20-day life
span. Ofcourse, that comprom tses th e function ofth e bloods transportation cap a-
bilities. Th e result is a cascad e of variable physical effects: Pain and swelling
throughout the body, fatigue, jaun dice, retarde d development , and eye problem s
are a11 associated with sicklin g crises, especlally in children. The lfe expectanc y of
someone with the disease, without med ical interventions discovered only in th e
last few years, is about 45.
Obviously it is not goo d to have. So why is 1 in 12 African Americans a carrier
of the allele? W hy is ] in 3 people in par ts of West Africa likewise a he terozygot e?
Why hasn't it been eiiminated from the gene pool by simple d irectional selection?
The an swer resides in th e condition of th e heter ozygote with respect to a spe-
cific environmental agent: malaria. Malaria is caused by a m icro organism of th e
genus Pasmod um th at spe nds part ofits lfe cyele in mosquitos and part in human
red blood ceUs. A bite from an infected m osq uito leaves traces of thc Plasmodium
parasite, which then enters the liver and th en the red blood cells, and p roceed s to
use them as a temporary horne while it reprodu ces. when the m alarial parasites
are ready a few days later; th e red blood cell bu rsts and releases thousands m ore
Plasmo d um cells into thc blood stream. The result of th is rnas sive attack on the
circulator y system is very high fever, chills, sweatlng, and delirium. After th at
passes, a few days elapse, and the cycle of symp toms may begin again.
Why are th ere mosquitos?: becau se there is stand ing water in the region .
Why is there standing water in th e reglo n t : because af th ousand s of years of
sm all-scale farming and irr igatio n. In other words, malaria is an ntense th reat in
rnany plac es because of the cultu ral activity of hum ans, which ultimately rrevers-
ibly tra nsformed the ir envi ronment.
A he tero zygote for sickIe-cell an emia has enough circul atin g normal hemo-
globin not to suffer from slckling under ordin ary conclitions. But un der cond i-
tio ns in wh ich the red bloo d cell is stressed, the sickIe he mog lobin it carries will
cause the ceU to assume the sickled shap e, and it wiIl be rapidly elim inated from
circulation , via the spleen. It is thought that whe n a heterozygote is bitte n by
m alaria-carrying m osquito, and the Plasmodum parasites en ter th e red blood
cells, the y becom e stressed, and consequently sickled, and are removed from cir-
culation befare the malan al par asite has a chance to complete its life cyele.
Th us, in thl s environm en t, the health of the stckle-cell homozygote s compro-
mised by the sckle-celldisease, and the healt h ofthc "normal" homozygote is com -
promised by greater susceptibllity lo m alar ia. We have just put th e word "normal"
 ,
88 C HA PT ER 5 ARE WE HERE ? IF SO . WHY?
in quotes beca use this exarnple leads us lo rct hink just what normal" me ans: pos-
sessi ng two copies ofth e most com m on allele ls n ot op timal for survival. Wh at s
best is to hove un e cop yofboth the cc mmo n allele and on e copy of the stckle allele.
We m ay also ob serve that neithe r alle1e is be ne r than the othe r, since it is the
genotypes that ar e b ett er oc worse for the b earer 's survival. And in th s case, having
both alleles together is op timal for the organism-this is hala ncing selection,
resulting in a balanced polymorphism of two com mo n alle1es in a p op ulation. Bu!
since heterozygotcs do no t bre ed true, th ere is a constant replenishment of the
sub optim al homozygous genotyp es evcry generatio n.
Sickle cell is an example of many imp ortan t concep ts: (1) discase as a mo lecula r
genctic phe nom eno n : (2) pleiotropy: (3) bala ncing selection; (4) gene tic adapta-
tion to the en vironm ent; (5) ada ptation to a p n .blem created or ma gni fied cultu r-
ally. a nd (6) how m isleading it is to think of alleles as better o r wo rse , wh cn it is
really their com bin ations (gen otypes) in par ticular contexts th at are better or
worse.
WHY IS THE GENE POOL TH E WAY IT IS?
T he American genet icist Sewall Wright d eveloped a complex mat hematical model
for envisioning the syn ergy between adaptive select on an d ra ndom gen etic dn ft
in evolution. Without th e math, it is still a po werful andvaluable met aphor : th e
adaptive lan dscape.
Let us consider ea ch of th e 25,000 genes in th e gcnome separately, in a single
eovironmental co ntextoEach one has ao op timal set of allele frequencies for that
environ men t. Thus, th er e is a potential graph one could make, plo tting the specific
set of possible allele frequencies aga inst th e ave rage fitn ess of the populat ion. T he
h ighe r th e average fit ness of the populatlon. th e b ett er off it is. If we th in k of th e
gene for P-globin , an d its allele for sckle-cell anemia, in a malar al co ntext, we can
construct a gra ph of fitn ess versu s allele frequen cy in whic h neither allele is supe-
rio r, bu t sorne prop ortio n of both is best for the population. Here , h aving n o
sckle-cell alleles is not great but is better than having all sick1e-cell aUeles; opti-
melly, about 20 -25% sickle ceU alleles is b est (which is of course what we find in
West Africa).
To do this for all t he gen es in the hu m an gcnome, an d pool t he data , would be
wonderful, but it would require envision ing a graph in 25,00 1 d im en sion s- on e
for each of th e human genes, plotted against average popu lation fitness. That Is
beyon d th e capacity ofh um an beings.
So let us simply im agine our selves h igh in an airplan e, looking d own on a
mountai n range. Points 00 the ground would be deterrn ned by th eir north -south
position, their ea st-west position, and their up -down po stion . T he north -sou th
dimension and ea st-:west dimension s might sta nd for the relative allele freq uen -
cies for two di ffer ent gen es. Each po nt on the gro und, then, would represent a
gene po ol, the spec fic proportions of th e alleles at these two loci. The third
dmension, altitude, will be a measure of th e p op ulatlo n's fit to its enviro nment.
Why Is the Gene Pool the Way It Is? 89
Peaks rep resent combi nations of allele trequ encies with h igh tness, and valleys
represe nt comb in ations of allele frequenc ies wit h low fit ness or nialadaptati on.
Any po int 0 0 th is geograp hical grid represen ta an ima gin ar y po pul ation-a spe - .
cfic set of ande frequencies ren de red mor e or less fit by virtue of existing in a
par ticular environmental contexto Thi s is what w ngbt meant by the "adap tive
landscape."
The action of natural selec tion on an y population will be to make it better
ada pted, or to have a higher average flmess. In othe r words, natural selection will
act to "pu ll" a p opul aton up t he n ear est p eak. But that is a sm all victory for the
gene pool. T he prcblem Wr igh t so ught to ad d ress was, How can a pop ulation find
a higher peak, a better adapted sta te, whtch wo uld req uire a t ra nsient perod of
mala dapt ation, as the allele frequen cies crossed a valley of poor fitness for several
genera tions?
Of cou rse evolution h as no for esight, so t he rc s no way th at it can becom c
temporarily less adap ted in order to become bett er adapted later ; nor doe s ir have
nrellgence, so that the population could see th e bctt er fut u re for the gene pool f
it just became more poo rly ad apted for the short runoNatu ral selection s a dumb
algorlthm.
The answer Wright carne up with involved subd ividi ng a p opulation so that
each sm aller population d eviates randomly from th e overall allele frequency-
wh at he carne to call "genetc dnft" Subdivision is th e equivalent of splattering
pa int d rop lets on the grap h aro und the poin t of th e original pa ren tal population.
T his bit of random ness m ay be en ough to land a smal l subpopulation at the b ase
of the oth er, hgh er; peak, so that natural selection "can now pull it up to th e top o
Thus, the de term inistic act ion of select ion and th e random act ion of drift can
work to gcth er m ore effectively th an eith er can alone. In Wr ight's own words,
Suppose that a pcrson sets out in a dense Eog to walk always up the steepest slope
in a hilly counl ry. He is almost certai n to find himself soon at the top of a rather
low knoll with nowhece to go without volating his resolve to go always uphill. If
instead, he had walked wholly at randorn, he would almost certainly have
remained most of the time 00 somewhat 10 \'1 groun d, since the h illtops are rela-
tively fcw. If however, he tends in the maln to waIk uphiII but also takes many
stcps in random dircction s, he may not reach the actual surnrnit of any hiII but
wiII not be brought to a stop on the top oE a lower one. UltimateIy he will find
himseIf 0 0 much higher gro und than iE cigorously adh er ng to the steepest
slopes.
Wr ight thus envisions ran dom processes (drift) an d deterministic pro cesses
(selcct ion) operating synergtstcally, lead ing to m ax ima l ad aptation . Thus can th e
tw o main forces m aking po pulation s diffe ren t from one another work together to
ge ne rate grea t diversit y. But wha t doe s this imply about OUT ability to tell whether
any particular feature of th e gene pool is there as a result of ran dom historicaI
processes of deterministlc biological processes? It certa inly com plicate s th e sea rc h
for a simple historical explanation to exp lain any particular gen et ic state.
 90 C HAPTE R 5 ARE WE H ERE? IF SO. W H Y?
Ind eed, what it seems to imply is that thc cases in which it is actually possible
to dstngush bctween tho se altern atives may be few and far between. Th e dichot,
omy itself may be falseoAnd, if we th row in fo r goo d measure, the facts tha t (1)
sm aIl bands oChunter-gatherers constituted the hum an specics for much of its
existence , which would seem to be an ideal situa tion for gene tic drift to ru n ram o
pant, and (2) in more recent time s, technology has increasingly blunted the force
of selectlon, we are left with the rccognilion that it may be gratuitous to assume
th at anything we see in hu rnans tod ay actua lly has an explanatio n in a Supposed
beneficial value, as opposed to mere luek.
We kn ow tha t n eut ral or unhel pful features can come to prominence in a gene
p ool, we know what circumstances favor it, and we know that those circu mstances
have prcdom nated in hu man prehistor y. The assumption that any particul ar fea-
ture of the gene pool. or the body, must be there for a reaso n (the consistent dif-
ferent ial perpetuaton of its bearers, o r survival of the fittesf), as opp osed to no
reason at al! (the vagar ies of h istory. or survval of the lucky), is at best gratuitous.
ADA PTATION OR FOUND ER EFFECn
SickIe cell is an excellent example of how detailed kno wledge of the molec ular
generics, physiology, population genetics, and environment can permit us to make
a strong inferenee about adaptive evolution.
Other genetic diseascs common in oth er populations are less well knc wn and
thus are ha rder to identify .as adaptations. Of cours e, they may not be adapta tions
at all but simply the random result of a found er effect, such as the prevalence of
po rphyria variegata in South' African Afrikaners (see aboye). Many other such
examples are kno wn: an o therw se exceedingly rar e genetic disease callcd Ellis-
van Creveld syndro me (eha racterizcd by polydaetyly or extra fingers, sho rt stat-
ure, other skeletal and dental abnormalities, and heart problerns), fou nd more
cornrnonly in the Pennsylvania Arnish (about 13% are carriers) than anywhere
else in the wor ld, and traceable to the gen es of a single couple who irnmigrated
in 1744.
But the evidence of elcvated frequenci es of "disease alleles" in diverse popu la-
tions is usually less cIear cut than the slckle-cell or po rph yria cases. How m ight we
tell, for exarnple, whethe r the elevated frequ ency of Tay-Sachs disease in Ashke -
nazi [ews (l in 26 is a carrier, abo ut ten times the world average. for a degeneratve
neurological condi tion that usu ally kills homozygotes by age three) is a random
tluke d ue to founder effeet, or a balanced polymorphism in whic h heterozygosity
con fers an advantage against a powerful environ mcnt al stressor?
We can anticpa te a signal of either alternative. If natural selectlon is at work,
an environmental stressor so powerfu J it can make a painful ailment lke sickle-
cell anem ia common woul d prob ably also elevate the freq uenc ies of other disease
alleles that confcr red sorne kind of heterozygous advan tage as weU. And thar is
pr ecisely what we find: otherwise rare recessives, such as the Du ffy-negative blood
Adaptaton oc Founder Effec t? 91
group and glucose- -phosphate dehyd rogenase negative (G6PD-) alleles, are ele-
vated in malarial areas too. In .a-utheast Asia, where there is malaria. but not sickle
cell, a different kind of blood disease callcd apha -thaassemia attains a high [re: ..
quency, doing essentially the same thing as sickle cell in heterozygo tes. And even
the sckle-cell allele itself seems to have arisen and spread at least six separate
times, linked to different eharacteristic DNA var iations.
O n the ot her hand, we can predict th at a disease allele elevated by chance, und
simply nh erited from.a comrnon ancestral fou nder, would be almost exactly the
same in cvcryonc who has tt. Snce it is the foun dcr's DNA they al! have, it sho uld
be virtu ally identical in all cases.
In the case ofTay-Sachs' d sease among Ashkenazi Iews, we find that the gene
00 chromosome 15 has the same mut ation n 79% of the Ashkeoazi Icws with the
Tay-Sachs allele; and 18% have another mu tation. This suggests a more eomplcx
sccnarlo with per haps both founder effeet and balancing selection working. Thc
fact that there is ver y Hule genetic diversity in the mutations causing the dsease
points to founder effect. Th e fact that the found er effeet would have had to occur
at least twice, elevating the sepa rate rnutations of the very rare disease to higher
frequenci es, suggests instead hetcrozygote advan tage. Also suggestive of the latter
hypothesis is the fact that Tay-Sachs is just on e of a spectr um of diseases of the
bioehem istry of the nervous system- including Gaucher's, Niemann-Pick's,farnil-
al dysautonomia (of whom 99% of the 1 in 30 Ashkena zi carri ers have the samc
allele), and even an ad ult-onset allele of Tay-.5aehs-all elevated .in prevalence
among Ashkena zi Iews.
It has been suggested that perhaps the Tay-Sachs' allcle conferred immunity
to tuberculosis 0 0 heterozygous carriers, by analogy to sicklc-cell an emia. Tuber-
culosis was a major health problem in crowded urban ghetto es where European
[ews were forced to lve for hund reds ofyears. While the hypothe sis may be true,
thc data in suppo rt of it are quite spo tty-especi ally since other geneticists argue
for an intellect ual advantage, rathe r than a respiratory one, on th e part of its car rl-
crs. Th e point is th is: If we cannot really tell that Tay-Sachs is elevated in Ashke -
nazi jews beeause of a determ inistic selective bias-c-fate,asopposed to chance-then
it rnakes no sense to speculate on whe ther or how the bias accrued to th e nervous
system rather th an to the pulmo nary system. If there may be no r~a .son at all for
the observation, then spewiog o ut possible reasons is valucless. It's like speeulating
on the number of angcls that can sit on a pinhead, assuming that there are ange1s
sitting on pinheads.
Sinee it is not easy to tell whether dn ft or selection has been the majar force
rnoldng the gene pool for a specific locus, it follows that ir is hard to say with
mueh security that a speciflc genetic configuration is an adaptation or not. T he
clevated frequcncy of sick1e eell in West African and Meditc rranean population s is
an adaptat lon: the elevated frequency of porphyria in -Afrlkaners Is not. We h ave
the physiology to support the former story and the historical records to support
the latter story. Nevertheless, bot h gro ups of peop le seem to be demogra phically
thr tvng, in spite of their genetic strengths and weaknesses.
 92 C HAPTER 5 ARE WE HERE? IF SO, W HY?
The allele that causes cystic fibrosis (characterized by thick mu cus, coughing
fits, a nd respiratory difficulties) is mo re prevalent in northern European s than in
other populations- l in 27 Americans who self-identify as "whte" are heterozy-
gotes. Nearly 90% of Danish carr iers of cystic flbross carry a particu lar mutation
(of the several hundred that have been discovered} known as F508; this figure
. drops to 75% ofD utch carr ters, 70% of French carrtcrs, and 50% of Spanish carri -
ers. It seems to be a combin ation ofboth d rtft (cbance) and selection (fltness).
The prevalence of the single F50 8 allele suggests founder effect, but th e
genet ic he terogenety otherwise present also suggests an advantage te the hetero -
zygote. Cystic fibrosis affects the cellular transport of ch loride ions, as does the
bacterial toxin that causes eholera. Perh aps, then, the per iodic outbreaks of dar-
rheal dseases, such as cholera or typhus, th roughout urban Europe an history, are
the selective agents at work, elevating the frequency of cystic fibros is in earler
generati ons; or perhaps noto
ANOTHER POINT ILLUSTRATED BY S I CKL E C E LL
AND PHENYLKETO N URIA
In spite of being the first "molecular disease" characterized at th e prot ein level (in
the 1950s) and at the DNA level (in the 1980s), sickle-cell anemia remains incur-
able. when the Human Genome Project- a multibill ion dollar effort to sequence
all the DNA in a hum an cell-was being in itially promoted in the 1980s, it was
often wrapped in the promise of a cure for genetic diseases. Here the working
assumption was that kno wng the DNA sequen ce would allow drect and easy
access to the cause, which would in tu rn suggest a cure.
But th e DNA sequence ls just a set of instru ction s for somethi ng; the cause of
the disease results from knowing what the gene pro duct does and how compro -
mising it leads to the symptoms. And the cure is predi cated more technologically
on a m ethod of delivery-gene therapy-than on learni ng th e sequence itseIf.
But th ere is no gene ther apy.
Sckle-cell anemia is well understood both genetic ally andbio -historically, but
remains incurable and nearly untreatable. Wh ile it causes cons iderable pan and
can be debilitating at various times, people can lve fruitful lives through it: jazz
trumpeter Miles Davis lived with sickle celi anemia to age 65.
Thus, knowing the gene sequence do es not seem to have been particularly
significant in findi ng a cure. It has recently been foun d that a d rug called
hydroxyurea can stimulate the production of fetal hemoglobin , which is ordinarily
shut off before b rth, but wh ich can provi de a useful alternative to sickIed adult
hemo globin.
On the oth er hand, phenylketonuria (PKU) is an autosomai recessive allele
knocking out the gene for the enzyme phenylanlan ine hydroxylase, whose DNA
sequence was not known untill 986. But it had becn treatable since the 1960s, with
special diets low in phenylalanine, which cannot be metabolized by p eople with
Sckle Cell, Tay-Sachs, and Genetic Scre eni~g 93
PKU. Thus, knowi ng the gene sequence was i: relevant to the treatment of the dis-
case. The DNA sequence is a genotype; tbe disease is a phenotype; and phenotypes
are treatable rncdically.
AIthough the course of the ailment is treata ble with dietary lntervent ioo,
homozygous women who had been treated for PKU as children almost invariably
givc birth to babies with PKU, regardless of the babies' genotypc. Apparently th e
materna l environment plays a major role in the developrnent of the disease.
SICKL E C ELL, TAY- SACIIS, AN D G EN E TlC SCREENI N G
In ano ther way, sickle cell also afforded the paradigmat ic case of genetics in action,
showing the interaction of science and society, as the first mass genetic screening
program-and a huge failure.
The story begins with the separate deaths of four black army recruits du ring
basic training at Fort Bliss, Colorado. in 1968- 69. A study of thelr blood at autop sy
revealed sickled blood cells (death, or merely removal from living context, is, of
course, a stressor on cells, ano heterozygotes will commonly be seen to have rnauy
sickled cells in the rnicroscope, although not in bloodstream). Out of the investi-
gauon that followed,and an outcry that the funding of research into sicklc cell was
far lower than that of other (non-black) genetic diseases, President Nixon pro-
posed a war on sickIe-cell anemia, initiating a screening program under the
Natonal Sickle Cell Anemia Cont rol Act of 1972.
But since the tests of the day just looked for sickled cells, th ey <ould not dis-
tinguish heterozygous carr iers from homozygous anemics-both groups testcd
positive for sickled cells. Since the goals of the program were not clear, and there
were far more heterozygotes than homozygotes, the carriers were the ones tar-
geted, even th ough they actually didn't express the disease. Th e great chemi st
Linus Pauling suggestcd that they should be branded with forehead tattoos as a
public warning of their genetic imperfection.
Small wonder they ddn't come in to get screened!
But screenng, in many cases, followed them. Many states passed mandatory
sickIe-cell testing Iawsjust for black.s (in spite of the fact that many Mediterranean
couples are at risk), and many schools and companie s instituted mandatory testing
as well. And there was no guarantee of confiden tiality-other people had access to
your test results, sometimes even before you.
As f that were not bad enough, there was lttle coun seling available. People
were oftcn not informed about the dfference between carriers and homozygotes.
Thus, many people who tested positive-since th e test d dn't make that distinction
either-thought theyhad the disease. Many people carne home believing that 10%
of their children had sickle-cell disease and would be dead by th e age of 20.
Very quickly, insurance rates cIimbed nearly 25% for anyone who tested pos-
tive. African Americans found doors closing to them in the airline industry and
the armed forces, who suggested that they would be more prane to sickling crises
during h igh-altitude training, parachutlng, and scuba diving. The U.S. Air Force
 94 C HA PT ER 5 A RE WE HERE ? JF SO . W HY ?
Academy ban ned all sickle-cell positives from entering flight tr aining, a palicy
en forced until1 981, whe n a lawsuit forced th em to reverse it.
Since no prenatal diagnosis was yet available, heterozygous cou ples either had
to risk the 1 in 4 ch ance o" having an afflcted child or op t to have ' l O child ren.
Get ting screened offered peo ple no ben efit and ma ny pot en tial dffi . ,~J eS.
Th e focus of modern genetc screening is to re duce fam ily tr agedy, not to
stigrnatize large gro ups of people, Here the purpose of a screen ing pr ogram e-
helping people - got lost in the co mbination of inadequate techn olog y, lack
of cultural sensitivity, an d poor dis sernination of adequa te infor ma t ion . The
accumulation of information out paced the acquisition of helpful knowledge, and
th e int erests of scien ce supe rseded the interest s of the subjects. The result was
widespre ad harm to peopIe, and little good.
By contras t, th e Tay-Sachs screcn ng program, in which heterozygotes have
always bee n detectable and coun sd ing has been avalable, has reduced the inci-
dence of Tay-Sachs among Iewish couples in America by 70%.
KINSHIP AS A BIOCULTURAL C O N ST RUCT IO N
Scree n ing programs are targeted for groups at higher risk for ccr tain di seases
beca use of their allele frequen cies. This of course captalzes on peoples sense of
ethnic ident ity, tha t th ey are more Iike other people in their group than they are
like outsiders. And that Is true in many sens es: behavior s, attitudes, dr ess, and
spee ch patterns are all markers of eth nicity. It is im portant lo reca ll, however, th at
although sickle-cell anem ia s a "black" disease, 11 in 12 African Americans are
not even carr iers ofi t; 25 of ~6 Ashkenazi Iews are not carricrs ofTay-Sachs. More-
over, the re ar e m any non -bl ack cases of sickle-cell an emi a an d non -Iewsh cases of
'Ia y-Sachs, especial1y am ong Cajuns and French Canadans. So it can be m slead -
ing to associate a dlsease ful ly with an eth nic group.
An d yet the idea of th e genetically u n fed group is a power ful on e. Th e famiIy
is a central unit of social existence everywhere (altho ugh many elemcnts of its
composition vary). And yet, even whe re husband and wfe are geneticalIy related,
th ey are not part of the same fam ily: Cha rles Darwin, for example, married hs
m other 's brothers daughter, Em ma Wedgwoo d (ofthe ceramies family) . The most
obvio us way to reco nc ile the prohibition on marrying a family member with the
destre to marry a relative s to define that relative out of your family. (AHhumans,
after all, are related - the quest ion is where to d raw the Iinel) Co nsequently, social
anthropologists-and m any cultures-ma ke a disti nction betwe en a mother's
brother 's daughter (like Ernm a to Cha rles Darwin ), or a cross-cous n, and a father's
brother 's d aughter, or parallel cousn, who would in many cases sha re your last
name. In the example shown (Figure 5.1), Iohn Sm th has two female cousins. His
cousin Iane is the daughter of Dad's bro ther, Uncle Bob, and shares loh ns fam ily
name. She is a parallel cousn, and a fam ily m ember. On th e ot her hand, Dad's
sister ma rried Polonius Ion es, and th er daughter Ophelia s tands in same genetic
relationship to John, but has a dtfferent family nam e. . he is studying a tiny percentage of ancestry. Let us assume for the sake of simplicity
Knshlp as a Biocultural Constr uc ti~n 95
Grandm a and Gran dpa
Smith
Uncle Bob
John Smith Jane Sm ith Oph elia Iones
Figure 5.1. To ..Io hn Smith, Jane and Op helia are genetically ldentlcal,
but in many ti mes and preces. Jane would be considered an Incest uou s
m atin g, while Ophelia wo uld be a pr eferred ma rriage partner.
Kinship is a fu ndamental aspec t of the s tudy of an th ropology beca use it
situates a person within th e universe of soc ial relation s. For mo st people who
have ever lived, it dictates their for m al attitud es, obligations, and expectations.
The m ed ium of kinship is our o rientatio n into lfe: it tells us who we are and what
we are.
Americans share two common fallacies abo ut kinship: (l ) th at kinship s a
natural proper ty rooted in genetic relationships and (2) that the American means
of conceptuali zing kinship is based more in genetics than other system s are. But
we can see, in the simple example given aboye, tha t Uncle Bob and Uncle Polo niu s
are very dfferenr relatives, altho ugh both are "und es." And Cousin [ane and
Cousin Ophelia are both equa lly relaled "by blood " to Ioh n Smith, but on ly Cous n
Op helia m ight be a suitable partner in many cultures because she is of the Ion es,
rather th an th e Smith,lin eage. (In American culture, [ane and Ophelia are equally
unsuitable, excep t perhaps on The ierry Springer Show.)
What we see, th en, s that kins hip is not th e same thing as gcn etic reIatedness.
It is con structed from two d ifferen t elem ents: gene tics and law. Every human soci-
ety s given a set of variables- generation, sex, stde of family, and marriage-and
weaves a pattern of similarity and difference, which sometimes corresponds to
genetics and sometimes doe s not.
Consider the following business vent ure to illustrate the complex relationsh ip
between cult ural ideas about knslp and gene tics. For $300, a gene ticist advertises
that he will sample the mitochondrial and Y-chromosome DNA of an African
Ame rican and tell where in Africa they carne from . Th ose bits of DNA are passed
on clonaUy, far the most part oand thu s circumvent the SO/50 chance ofbeing passed
on th at any ordinary bit of ch romosome has. Th e geneticist says he will give client s
a feeling of connection lo Africa. And he well m ayoBut he is not stud ying ancest ry-
 96 CHA PT E 1{ 5 A RE W E HERE ? IF SO. WH Y?
th at your an cestors were bro ught to Ame rica in 1700. a nd there are 25 years Per
gene ration T hen 12 generations have elapsed. You had two anc estors 1 gen eration
go (you r parents}, and 4 ancestors 2 gene ration s ego (your gra ndpa rents). How
.rnany an ccxtors did you have 12 generat ions ago?: 2 12 or 4,096. (See Figure 5.2.)
And how m any of them will be studied ? If'you h ave one, ya ur Y chromoso me
was pa sscd on from father to son; you receved your s from your father, wh o
received it fro m hl s fath er, an d so forth. It ide ntifles on e of you r 4,096 ancestors.
Likewi se, rnt DNA, as we n oted in the last cha pter, is your moth er's, an d was her
m other's, etc. That Identifles a secon d of th e 4.096 an cesto rs. lo Figure 5.2., you
can see th e relatives tdentified. Simply, a mong the 16 gre er-grea t-gran dparen n ,
you can ldcntify a m itochondrial ancestor, a Y'c hromosu me ancestor, an d 14
ance stors in that gen eration who a re invisible. Eight generations before tbat . yo u
would still be able to identify two ances tors, an d all the rest wou ld be invisible.
You wou ld not be able to iden tify the vast rnajority ofbiological ancestors in any
generation. The two bits of DNA being traced are genetc markers. but the yare only
mi nimally units ofbered ry In oth er words, this is about kinship-a sym bolic linkage
to other people-not about the rigorous scientific analysis of your genetic constitution.
And th ere is an impor ta nt scientific consequenc e of th is. Suppose you needed
to prove your ancestry for sorne reason . l et us say also th at, as a womanryou
ha ven't got a Y chro m osorne, so you sett le for just a rntD NA test. But th at test onl y
exa m ines one of your eight great-grandparents. Seven of your eight great-gran d-
parents co uId be of the "correct' ethnicity, but only a bit of the DNA from your
mother's m other's mother is being stu died. If it comes out "wrong,"you mig ht still
have 7/ 8 of your an cestry "r ght" bu t no way to study it.
Por th e same reason, it is impossible to establish whether some one is "Natve
American" or to what tribe they belon g on the basis ofsuch data. People are mued,
Figure 5.2. Your mtDNA tracksyour maternal line;your y DNAtracks your
paternalline; but mast of your great-grandparents are entlrelyinvisible to
these stud ies.
Genetic Hi story and th e Dlverslry Project 97
and labels are not genetically inh erited ; they are legislated either formally or nfor-
m ally. Who you are and what you are, thu s, are only partI y facts of natur e, estab -
lishcd by genetics. The idea th at the re i., .\ bit of heredity sh ared by all m emb ers 0:-
an ethnic grou p and by nobody else is a relic of essen talst th ought. As H opi
geneticist Fran k Dukepoo wro te,
1 call myself a "full-blood" Ame rican Ind an of Hopi and Laguna hcrltage. Whil e
cons truc ting rny own pedi gree, 1 found thi s s far from th e tru th: rny father (a
"Hopi") s a mixture of Hop, Vtc. Paute, Tewa and Navajo; my ~ o th er, on : he
other hand, (a "Lagu na") is a mix ture of Lagun a, Acoma, Isleta, ZUOland Spanish.
Mem bers of other tribes share sim ilar adm ixtu re histor ies as our ancestors raided,
traded or kldn apped to ensur e survival of th eir numbers. [I]t is reasona b1ysafe to
sur mlse the same situation for rncmbers of other ethn ic group s. . ..
GENETIC HISTORY ANO T HE OI VE RSIT Y PROJ ECT
Di fferent groups of p eople m ay h ave dffere nr allele frequ en.cies for adapt.ive oc
non adaptive reasons. It is reasonable to suppose that a similar constella.tlOn of
allele frequen cics migh t be an in dc ation of recent c ommo~ an cestr!. ~nd mdee~,
by th e late 1960s, develop m ent s in biochemical gene tics and sta tistica l analyss
dove lailed lo the extent tha t large d ala sets of allele frequend es could be readily
compared and the iroverall patterns of sim ilarity estab lished.
It couId easily be show n that p eople are gen etically simil ar to those nearby
and dfferent from those far away, as is true physically. But much more th an that
canno t be readil y rferred. Afte r all, two populations ma y be genetically sim ilar
beca use they sh are recen t a ncestry or because th ey have experi~nced gene flo,:".
Th cse are thus two yery d fferent bio-h istorical explanations for the same gen etc
pattern. .
Fu rth er, th ese differe nccs are subtle to b egin with-a few percentage points
of one allele or ano th er-and are thus subject to random convergenc e. An d in
m any ca ses, whe re populati on s have experi en ced lon g-term ge~e flow wit h sev-
eral n eighb oring groups, it makes very Iitt le sense to ask wht ch one th ey are
closest to.
An d m ost importantly, hu m an gro up s come in so many d ifferen t guises-
linguisti c (Bantu), nat ion al (Fre nch), religious (Jewish), racial (whi le), tr ib al!
ethnic (Ainu, Apac he, Hutu, Rom a)-thal pooling the m Into a single sl udy as f
they were equivalent categories wo uld be very anthropologicaUy ~islead ing.
In 1991, a group of population geneticists proposed the fou.ndlllg of a Hu~an
Geno me Diversity Project to acquire and study th e DNA of dlverse population s
throughout the wcrld. Why?
1. To find out everyones evol utionary h istor y. But it was not altogether c1ear
th at they could do that, esp ecially given th e history of global mix ing over
the last five cen turies. Further, it was not c1ear that other people we re as
interested in it as genet icists seemed to be . And mor eover, people alre ady
 98 CHAPTER 5 ARE WE HERE? IF SO, WHY?
had idea s about wh o they are an d where th ey carne from. Why would th ey
wish to h elp sc ien tists undermine the ir ow n ideas?
2. To help cure gene rc di sease. But genetic in fo rm ation alc ne-c-without me d-
ical hi stories to associate with each genotype-won't pe rmit you to make a
diagnosis. And witho ut kn owing who had th e dis ease, you can't associate
on e allele with one state of health and another allelc with anoth er state of
health. Th cre s, in fact, ver y little you can do with gene tic information
alone.
3. To pre ser ve the gcn etic lega cy of peopl es fac ng exti nc tion: a no ble-so und-
ing goal. but aga in problematic. After all, if th ey are really facin g ext inc-
tion, what good does it do them to save th eir D NA ? And wha t is "ex tinction"
here ?: Something tragic like geriocde, o r ben ign like as simiIa tio n? Are the
people ga ing cxtin ct, or is their official category go ing under? If the for-
mer, th en it so unds awfull y cyoical to ign or e the plig ht of th e pe ople to
save the ir cells: an d if the lat ter, th e genes w ill stiU be thcre, but under a
di fferent set of ethnic labeIs.
WHO OWNS T HE BODY?
BUl perh aps the greatest diffic ulty faced by the Diversity Project carne the wirh
em ergence ofcorporate biotech nology at the sam e time. Am an nam ed Iobn
Moo re was wor king on the Alaska pipeline whe n he wa s d iagno sed wit h arare
form of spleen cance r in 1976. H is Jife wa s saved by a sp ecialist at UC LA Me dic al
Center; who developed a cell lin e from th e cancer, wh ich h e called Mo-ceIl. The ccll
line turned ou t to be highl y profltable, and th e doctor mad c m illions from it-but
h e d d u't teIl Moo re, nor had Moore even srgned a con scn t form oMoore lcarn ed
about it in 1984 and su cd fOI a part of th e profits derlved ultimately fro m hs own
b ody.
In 1990, th e Ca lifo rn ia Supreme Co urt decded the ca-,c in a verdct that
would esta blish th e domain of corp orate biotec hnology. Jo h n Moore had no claim
to th e profit from th e cell Iine derlve d fro m bis spleen. The moncy had been earned
entirely by the pe rson wh o had invested the labo r to ma ke t valuable, the doctor-
.in spite of the fact that Mo ore had no t even sign ed a conse nt for mo
Ph armaceutical co mp an ies now had the freedom to se nd doc tors out to
rem o le parts of the worl d in pursuit of the celIs of indigcnous pe oples, and to see
jf there was an ything of value in them-and to owe the natives no th ing. It was the
open ing of a new for m of eco no m ic exp loitatio n-bio-colon iali sm .
And ju st as rhe Diversity Project was fighting off accu sation s about its scien-
tifi c m erit an d nec ess ity, it becam e widel y known th at the Nat iona l los itutes of
He alth (N IIl) had just ftled a claim for a patent o n a cell lin e dc rived [ro m the
olo od of a Hagah ai ma n fram New Guinea. And there was m o re in th e worles- a
celllin e fro m a m a n of the Solomon Island s in Melanes ia and fro m a Gua ym
wo ma n from Panam a.
References and Purther Reading 99
Th e Diversity Project had no involvem ent in th s, bu t it clea rly represen ted a
signi fican t economic interest they had not confronted. To m any indigenous peo-
pies whom th ey h ad hoped to eolleet blood from, th is now sounded Iike a dassic
encounter with colo nials- they go t some thi ng vaIua ble an d left HUleor noth ing in
return. An d now Am erican scie nce wanted their very genetic essences.
T he Hu m an Genome Diversity Project neve r got the formal fun ding it so ught,
pr incipally because it never aeknowledged that the scientific study of h um an pop-
ulations is invariab ly politic al. This is nei ther abad th ng, nor a corruptio n of sc i-
en ce, but an intrinsic property of the stud y ofless powerful people, in an eco no m ic
co ntext of po ssibl y exploitative relations. It requires the conjunc t ion of biology
an d anthropological knowledge an d sens itivities to be aceom plishe d suceessfully.
The pate nt applicatons on the celllines of indigenous peopIes were subs eq uently
with drawn by th e NIH; but a successor, known as th e Geno graphic Project , was
Iaunched in 2005, with fund ing fro m Natio nal G eographc and IBM, and its popu-
lation genet icists are once agan tryi ng to acquire the DN A of indi geno us peoples
on a large scale.
RE FER ENCES AND FU RT HER READING
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544.
Barker, J. 2004. Thc Human Gcnome D ivers iry Project : 'P eoples; 'po pulat lons' and the cul-
tural politics of identification. Cultural Studies 18:571- 606.
Bolnick, D. A., D. Fullwiley, T. Duster, R. S. Co oper, J. H. Fujimura, J. Kahn , J. S. Kaufman,
I, S., Mal ks, et al. 2007. The science and business of genetic ancestry testng. Science
318:399- 400 .
Can , A. J., and P. M . Sheppard. 1954. Natural selectlo n in Cepaea. Genetics 39:89- 116.
Cavall-Sforza , 1. 1,., A. C. Wilson, C. R. Cantor, R. M. Co ok-D eegan. and M.-C. Kng. 1991.
Call for a worldwide survey of human genetic dve rsry : A vanishing opportunity fOI
thc Human Geno me Project. Genomics 11:490-491.
Dukepoo, F. 1998. Th e trouble wi th the Human Genome Dversity Project . Molecular Med-
icine Today 4:242-24 3.
Dobzhansky. T; 1971. Genetics of the Evolutionary Procese. New York: Columbia University
Press.
Duster, '1: 1990. Backdo.v lO Eugenics. New York: Routledge.
Goldbcrg. C. 2000. DNA offers link to Black history. The Ne\1"Yo rk "limes. August 28.
Grant, P. R., and R. Grant, 2002. Unpredictablc evolution in a 30-ycar study of Darwin's
flnches. Science 296:707-7 11.
Greene, E., B. E. Lyon, V. R Muehter, 1. Ratcllffe, S. J. Oliver, and P. T. Boag. 2000. Dsr up tve
sexual selection for pumage colouration in a passerine bird. Nature 407:1000-1003.
Helgason, A., S. Palsson, and D. Guthbjart sson. 2008. An association between tbe kinship
and fertility of hu man couplcs. Science 319:813-81 6.
Karn, M. N., and L. S. Penrose. 1951. Birth weight and gestation time in rrl;:tion to maternal
age, parity. and infanl survival. A nnals of Eugenics 161:147-1 64.
Kwiatkowski, D. P. 2005. How malaria has affected th e human genomc and what human
genetics can tcach us about malaria. A me rican Journal o/ Human Genetics 77:171- 192.
 100 C HAP T ER S ARE W E H E RE ? 1F SO, WHn

Majerus, M. E. N. 1998. Melanism: Bvolution in Action. New York: Oxford University Press.
Marks, J. 2008. Human Genome Diversity Studies: Impact on ndige no us cornmunit ies. In
CHAPTER 6
Encyclopedia o/ the Human Genome. <wwwe ls.net>. Iohn Wiley & Sons, Ud : Chch-
esteroDO I: 10.100 2/97804700 15902.aOOO5 172 .pub 2.
Murray, R. F. 2001. Social and med cal implications of new gen etic techniques. In The
Human Genome Project and Minority Communities: Bthical; Social, and Politica
. Dlemmas, ed. R. A. Zilinskas an d P. J. Balint, 67-82. Westport, CT: Praeger;
Nat ional Academy of Scence s. 1975. Genetic screeningprograms, prnciples, and research. Building Better Monkeys, orat Least
Washington DC : NAS Press.
Nelkin, D. and S. Lndee. 1995. The DNA Mystique. The Gene as a Cultural /con. New York:
Freeman .
Different Ones (On Systematics)
Nelson, ~. 2008. Bio Scienee: Genetic genealogy testing and the pursut of African ancestry.
SOCIal StudiesofScience 38:759-783. .
Palsson , G. 2007. Anthropology and the New Genet cs. New York: Cambridge University
Press.
Tutton, R. 2~. "They want to know wh ere they carne from": PopuJation genetcs, ldentry;
and family genealogy. New Genetics and Society 23:105 - 120.
THEME
w aloo, K. a~d S: Pembert on. 2006. The Troubled Dream o/ Genetic Medicine: Ethnicity and
lnnovation In Tay-Sachs, Cystic Fibrosis, and Sickle Cell Disease. Baltrn ore, MD : Iohns The study of populalions beIow th e species level, and the compartsons of spec es
Hopkins University Press. to on e anothe r, are epstemologcally ve ry di ffer ent from one ano the r. Natu re
Wald .P. 2006. Blood and stc ries: How genomics ls rewrltng race, medicine. and human m akes specles, but hum ans orga n ize and arrange them into mcan ingful gro ups.
hstory Patterns of Prej udice 40:303 -331 .
The orga n izing prln d ples o f greatest interest to science involve ar ra nging species
Wright, S. 1932. The roles of mutation, inb reedn g, cross-breeding, and selection in evolu-
acco rd ing lo theirancestry.
. tion. Proceedings of the Sixth lnte: nationaf CongressofGe netics 1:356- 366.
w rtght, S. 1960.,Genetics, ecology and scIection. In The Origin of Life. Vol. 1 of Bvolution
Afi er Darw n, ed. Sol Tax. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. SPECIATION
The study of the m ultiplica tion oflineagcs an d their fat es com prises the domain of
m acro evolut ion , in con trast to the study of the transformation of a single b olog -
cal ln eage, or mi cro evolution. Mi cro evolut io n can ofte n be studied in pro cess,
espccially in organ isms with shor t generation tim es. Macroc volution , on the other
ha nd , generally cannot he, and instead our kn owle dg e of it com es from two prin-
cip al so urc es: the patter ns di scernible in thc fossil record and the relationsh ips of
p opul at io ns in various stages of diverg ing fro m one another.
W hen we contras l two species, we find that th ey differ in m any ways. They
look dffercnt, sound dfferent. Hve in differen t areas, eat d ifferent foods, an d have
differe nt U NA sequen ces and differen t chro rno so m e st ructu res. But how did they
come lo be that way? At its m ost basic, the answer is th at two scparate evolutionary
lin eages will necessa rily ada pl lo their in d ivid ual circu msta nces , as well as dive rge
rando m ly fro m o ne anothe t; so long as th ey are not in genetic contac to
W hal tht s m cans is th at first and forem ost, the gene fIow between the two
populat ons m us t he in ter rup ted. W it hout gene tc contact, the two po pulatio ns
ca n only become m o re d ifferen t fro m each other: eve n if they ada pt to com m on
environmental problems, they willlikely achieve it by di fferent genetic m ean s (like
different h u m an population s have resp o nd ed genetic ally to malaria. with eleva ted

IOl
 102 C HAPT ER 6 BU I LDI NG BE-TT E R MONKE YS
frequ en cies of many different blood diseases, of which sickle cell is simply the
most famous).
Th e mo st obviou s way for populations to be rem oved from gen etic contact is
geog rap hic separation , or aIlopatry. Once populalions are geograph ically isolated
from one another; they cannot interbreed, regardless of whether or not th ey wouId
like to. Thus, given sorne time and divergent adap ting, if they get back togetber,
th ey may well discover tha t they no longer see one another as potential mates.
SPECIFI C MATE RECO GNITION SYSTE MS
We do no t understand th e basis by which anirnals recogn ize sorne as potenti al
m ates and others as not . It s, however; surprisingly difficult actually to mate pr o-
duct ively in nature, for many things have to be precisely attuned. Pirs t, you have to
be able to find a ma te, which rnean s you and the m ate mu st occupy th e same ter-
ritory at least pa rt of the time.
Second, you must bot h be fertile at the same time. In mo st primates, ' fer tile"
is a near syn onyrn for "interested"-and thus without fertilit y, th ere is no sexual
engagement.
T hi rd, you must be able to attract the ma te with the app rop riate signal: th s
may be achieved through any of the senso ry apparatuses. Ther e m ay be a matin g
callo or a mating dan ce, or a stimulus that is oIfactory or visua l (such as thc purpl e
estru s swellings ofbaboons), or an appropr ate behavor, or touch .
Fourth, you must be attractive to the partner. Prim ates do no t mate ind s-
criminately, and exercise pr eferen ces in their choice of mates.
Plfth, you mu st have the app ropria te equipment. Many speci es of rnacaq ues,
for example, have oddly shape d penises th at are preci sely m atch ed to f it oddly
shap ed vaginas of the same speces.
Sixth , you mu st mat ch the physiology and genc tic system of your pa rtner, Por
example, the alkalin ity ofth e ejaculate must neutralize the acidic cond itions of th e
vagina for the sperm to su rvve. If sufficient gcne tically based dfferences have
accum ulated, the egg rnight not b e fertilized, or fail to impl ant, or fal to develop,
or fal to gesrate, or fall to thrive. An d even if the offsprin g does make it a11 th e way
to adul thood, it migh t end up steri le, Iike amule.
Obviously, bearing and raising a sterile offspring represente a lot of wasted
effort from the standpoint of evolut ion, and conse quently,selecuon wc rks to express
such incompatibilities at ear lier stages. That is. of course, wby the situation of sterile
mules is so rare in nature, and why most species don't even scc each otber as poten -
t!aJ mates. T hey have evolved speciflc mate recogn ition systems, wh ich pcrmit the m
to ident ify th eir po tental partners and lo avoid th e waste of time and energy in
bea ring and rearing an offspring that ha s n o hope of perp etuating the linea ge.
We know ver )' little of how such recognit ion systems evclve, but the y are
likely to involve som eth ing like sexual selection, a enrollan ' 'theory propos cd by
Darwin in 1871..Natural selection was proposed to explain ho v..- an imal sp ecies
come to differ from one anothe r. But why might males an d rcmales in the same
Genetic Systems Producing Incompatbiliry 103
spec ies come to differ from one another! Darwin had, in fact, been thinking about
sexual selection whe n h e wrote The Origin of Speces. but decided to keep th at
work short (by Victorian standards) and narrowly focused.
Th e an swer Dar win derived was not so mu ch competiti on for su rvval and
longevity, but competition par ticularly for mates. In goo d Victo ria n fashion, Da r-
win saw males as nearly universalIy larger and stro nger than fema les, and imag-
ined tb at male s universally strutted and fought amongst each oth er, and rnated
with the waitin g female. We now know th at scen ario to be con siderably oversim -
plified (as well as culturally inflected - remi niscent of Olive Oyl waiting for Pop -
eye an d Bluto to slug it out. knowing she'Il be satisfied with either one).
Instead, female primates exercise choice, rather than m ating indi scr imi nately
with the strongest or ficrce st. The ehoic es they make are what dr ive sexual selec-
tion . In sorne cases, th ey m ay ma te with th e stro ngest and fercesr, thus presum -
ably perpetu ating those traits: or they may mate witb the fastest, cleverest , mo st
colorful, or smelliest maleoTh at , in tu rn, will make males in future generatio ns
faster; clevcrer, mo re colorful, or smcller: and they are th e traits from which spe -
cflc mate recognition systems will originate.
Sorne of ou r most profo und d ifferences from the apes lic spec ifically in th e
ways that males of our spectes d ffer from females of OU! species. In chimpanzees
and gonl las, for example, th e m ales are essentially ju~t larger, and have larger
canine teeth . In humans , however, with male bod ies slightly b ggcr than females
(and th ose d iffcren ces widely exaggerated culturally), ma le canine teeth are not
signifi cantly larger than female canine teeth . Yet me n also h ave beards and body
hair; women h ave Httle facial and body hai r, and those d ifferences are not paral-
leled in the apes. And wom en h ave sub cutaneous fat deposits on their hips an d
un der th eir npples, and less of their body weight is mu scle: neith er do ape males
and females dffer in ths way. Sinc e our patterns of sexual d mor ph ism are so dif-
ferent fro m th ose of our pr imate relatives, it is probably safe to nfer .t hat early
hom inids comp eted for males in sorne dfferent manners th an apes do to day. (Per-
haps in more cultur al ways!)
G EN ETIC SYSTEMS PROD UCING INCOMPATIBILIT Y
Little is known about the genetic product ion of stcrility in prim ates; how ever,
stu dics of other specie s have demonstrated diverse, and fairly simp le, mechanism s
for doi ng so.
O ne we.known example involves bits of DNA callcd "P eleme nts" in fruit
flies. T he P elernent contains a gene that encodes a prote in th at can be spliecd in
two ways. Spliced on e way, in ger m cells, thc resulting protein cuts the gene i~self
out of th e DNA (vtransposase") so th at t can be nsert ed elsewh ere. Sphced
an oth er way, the protein inh ibits th at transp ositio n (represson) . A fru t fly with ~
element s (called a P fly) can mate with others like it. But when it mates with a fruit
Oy lackin g P elements (an M Oy), someth ing odd hap pr-ns. If a female P Oy ma tes
with a m ale M tly, th ey have normal offsp ring. If a m alc P fly mates with a female
 104 C HAP T ER 6 BU ILD ING BETT ER M ONK EYS
M fly, however, th e offspring have dram atically reduced fertility and extensive
mulalions (hybrid dysgenesis), and offspring of the hybrid have a great deal of
chromosome dam age and genetic defects.
'Why? The P element make s its own repressor proteins, which float around in
the ce11ular cytop lasm. At fertilization , the egg eontributes cytoplasm . Thus, a P
egg fertilzed by an M sperm will have P eleme nt s and their repre ssor s; but an M
egg fer tilized by a P spe rm will h ave no repressors available. In that case, th e P
eleme nts will make the ir tr ansposase an d "jump" around the genome of the dcvel-
oping fly, causing a11 gene tic hell to break loas e.
Is this specia tio n? No. Both P and M strains are Drosophila melanogaster. But
P elements have on ly existed in this species sin ce 1950, app arentl y intrcduced
fro m a different sp ecies. What th s illustra tes s th e po ssibility of geno mic incom -
pa tib ilities arising quite suddenly in evolutionary time and promoting the divisin
of gene pools, sueh th at, gven sufficient time, speciation might well take place.
Altho ugh P eleme nt-mediated hybrid dysgenesis in fru it Iles is the best-
known example, there are other exampl es ofsimilar phenome na. And altho ugh we
don't understand Its fun ction , about 5% of th e human geno me consists of copies of
a DNA sequence ealled Ll , which falls with in thi s class of tr anspo sable genetic
elcments.
Somewhat be tter unders tood is the way in whic h large-scale rearrange-
ments of th e chromosomes can red uce th e fertility of otherwi se ph eno typically
no rmal people or anirnals, and thus conceivably produce a gene tic barrier
between popu lations. For th ts we -need to recall two aspee ts of mei osis, the cell
d ivision lead ing to th e productio n of sperm and egg. Mei osis b egins with the
specific int im ate pairin g of h om ologou s ch romosomes-the two # 1 ch ro mo-
so rnes pairing with one ano ther, the two #9 chromosomcs pa iring wth on e
ano the r, an d so forth . With a mi cro scope, cytologists can see the 23 chromo -
sorn al masscs thereby form ed. At thi s time, th e rnernbers of eac h chromosome
pair exchange genetic ma teriaI-cros sing overoNo gcnetic m aterial is ordinar-
ily ga ined or lo st, since th e cxchan ge Is simply betwcen different allel es of th e
"sam e" ch romosomes.
Suppos e, however, one of th e ch rom osomes has been str uct uralIy rcarranged,
so th at it ha s the right genes , bu t in the wrong ar der. Perhaps the ch rom oso mc has
bro ken in two places, and th e resulting internal segment ha s been reinserted
upside down. Th is is known as a chrom osomal inversi n, an d is in fae t present in
1 or 2 of every 10,000 human newborn s.
A hete ro zygote for a chromo somal inversion is usuaIly fully hcalthy in every
way but on e: th ey have reduced fertility. Their own meio sis and crossing-over
results in gamctes with th e wrong amount of genetic inforrnation - some with too
much and sorne with too littlc. They have the right genes in th e right pro por tions
themselves; but many of their sperm or ova do not.
An other k..ind of chromosome rearr angem ent, about 10-15 tim es more com-
mon in hum ans, involves the breakage of two ehromosomes an d their reclprocal
excha nge. This is known as a tra nslo cau on: in this iUustration (see Figure 6.1),
Genetic Systcms Producin g lncompatibility 105
9/3 3
Ii
3 9 9/ 3 3/9
Figure 6.1. A hete rozyqote for a balance d tran slocation will undergo
meiosis by having its chromoso mes pelr up in creatlv e ways.
involving chromosomes 3 and 9. O nce again, sin ce all the genes are there and i~
the righ t propor tlons in th e hete rozygote, th e ca rr ier of such a re~rr~n;>gement IS
phenotypically normal. But how do the chromosom es u ndcrgo ~el05Is .
The y do so by forming a cross-like structure. The prob lem 15 tl~at two chro-
mosomes assort into one dau ght er cell, and two into the ,o ther. So WhICh two travel
togeth er? Only if the chromosomes diagonally opposite o.ne another assort together
will th e gametes have the proper chromosome quantities. If on the other hand, the
two at the top sort into one daughte r cell, and the two at the bottom in~o th e ~t~er,
3:
then the top gamete will have two copies of m ost of chromosome W1~ fertihz~
ren, the zygote would have three copie s of chromosome 3, a situ atc n that 15
incompatible with life.
Thus, f two populations existed, one with eh romosomes 3 an d ~ and t~e
other with the translocated ch romosom es, they might have lon g-term difficulties
with gene flow since heterozygous hybrids woul d be reprod~c.t i~ely disadvan -
taged. Th c ch rom osome rearrangement s might act eithe r to initiate t~e 1055 of
genetic cont act, or to reinfor ce it, on ce it has been initiated by oth.er genetIc me ~ns.
Cons equently, we find that many primat e specie s dffer from their closest relatives
by virtue of thcir chro mosom e structure.
Hum ans, gor illas, and ehimpanzees differ from ene another by perh ~ps 14
such rearran gements of th e chromosomes: a fusion of two chromoso~n es I~ the
human lineage, a tra nslocatio n in the gorilla line age, and abcur a do zen invcrston s.
Perhap s th ese served to reinforce the separation of th e gene pools in our ancestors
7 million years ago.
The gibbons (family Hylobatidae}, on the other hand, have an almosl
uncountable number of chromcsomal rearrangerncnts dfferentat ng the chro-
mosom es of closely re1ated species-very likely, the chro mo sorne rearr angt' ments
have b een mo re fun damentally nvolved in the processes of speciatio n in gihbons.
And in the babo ons (family'Cercopitheeidae), presumably speciation is occu rrin g
by other m eans entirely-well.marked species nevertheless seem to have Identical
ch rom osome structures.
 106 CHAP TER 6 BUILD ING BETTER MO N KEYS
SPE CIES AS I NDI VIDUALS
Classic ally, as we n oted in chapte r 3, a sp ecies was cons id ered to be a class or set of
creatures th at shared on e or more key features. Since such an assemblage Is time-
less an d can not evolve (It can onl y be redefined) , it has very Iittle valu e today. It s
imp ortant to no te th at we can use key featu res to identify an d allocate a specimen
to one spe cies or another, but th at do esn't help us to understand what a species is.
I[ we see a species, rarher, as composed of organis ms related to on e anoth er
th ro ugh the process of reprcducti on , or th e production of line age- th at s, as
p ot ential ma tes , and as pote nt ial corn mon ancestars-then th at view of spc cies
changes radically. A species is th en a unit or an individ ual (n or a class), com-
p osed of par ts (not m embers), uni ted by th eir relatio n shi p s (not by their attri-
butes). Moreover, th ts species is capa ble of evolving, rather than of m erely being
red efined.
As an individual, a spcces will easily be seen to p osscss many fam iliar propcr-
ties that it would not have as a class or set. For example, a species will occupy a
certain spac e at a certain tim e; it wilJ have a beginm ng, a duration, and an end-
ana logo us to the birth, Iife span, an d death of th e individual organism o Here, of
course, the begin ning is specia tion, an d the en d is extinction . By the same token , a
species can split into tw o-that is, it can repro du ce. More over, a species intcract s
with its environrnent in a specifc way-it occup ies a nche in an ecologica l system.
Th ese properties-inte racting with the environm en t, rep roducing, and bein g
bounded in space and time-make.a species a thng, a nameable entity, rathe r than
bei ng merely an abstract set defin ed by the common p ossessio n of an essential
qu ality by all its members. .
Th is furthe r pl aces a species at th e top of a biological hierarchy of autono-
m ous individuals with th e prop erties we have been discussing: reproducton, spa -
tial and temp oral localizatio n, and environmental interaction. Ths wou ld be a
h ierarchy of cells, or ganisms, and sp ecies. Each is an organized system composed
ofthe units below it: A sp ecies is composed of organ isms, an d an organ ism is com-
posed of cells; and yet a species is m or e th an just a collectlon of bodies, an d a body
is more than just a flask of cells. The un its are or gani zed and related to one another
at each leve! in the hierarchy
This a1so perm its us to visu alize another extension of the Darwini an pro -
cesses. Classical Darwin ian cvoluti on invok es consistent biases in fertility or lon -
gevity to explai n th e diversity ofspecies. Cou ld we not , then , Iook lo the analogies
to fertiliry and lon gevity in species-name ly, rates of speciation and durati on of
species-to study trcnds in the his tory oflife?
Indeed we can, and although thi s kin d of wor k is still young, t addresses
questions th at seem n ot be visible otherwise. Why are th ere so many (abo ut 20)
species of macaques (gen us Macaca) an d so few (only 3-8) (J baboon s (genus
Papio, even stretche d to inelude Theropithecus and Mandrillus), which are closely
related to them? Are maca ques more pron e to forro new taxa? Are baboo ns m ore
prone to go extinct? w by are there 25 -3 0 spccies of guenons (genu s Cercopithecus)?
Levels and Rateso Evolution 107
Why are there 20 species of langur monkeys (gen us Presby tis), bu t only 7 of the
dosely relate d colobus monkeys (Colobus)? Why are there 9 species of gbbons
(genus Hylobates), but onl y on e of or angut ans (Pongo)? .
While these kinds of questions have no ready answers at prese~t, it seems
likely that answe rs will come not from properties of the cells or the bodies of th ese
anm als, but rather, from properties of the po pulations into which they coalesce.
Th is is the same sense in whic h a brth rate cannot b e pr cdicted from aspec ts of the
cells oc the bo dies (ercept in a very crude way-a mouse being un iversally m ore
pr olific than a mo ose, for example), b ut can only be studied by ~ooking at the
population as a "super-organtsm'' and the birth rate ~s a .feature of t. .
The idea of the "super-organism" is an old on e III bology It usually aros~ III
discussions of societies, with an ant colony or human culture, for example, bemg
an alogized to a sing le body With respect to the h ierar~hi~al. prop~rties .of c~~s ,
organism s, an d species, what glvcs th em speca l status as m~lvl~~als IS t~elr ability
to reproduce or replicate (that s, to make copies or new l~dIvId ual ~ Iike the~
sclvcs, autonomously, given sufficient raw mater ials) and to nterac t with th e env~
ronment (whether that environment is others like them or merely rher
surroundings). Other things wide ly identified as un its of naturc, such as genes ,
popu lations, an d ecosystems, lack th e ful1 extent of these abilities, and thus ar: not
considered individuals. Genes, for example, can not rerroduce without the aid of
many external en7.ymes and cel1ular features.
LEVELS AND RATES OF EVOLUTION
Although evolut ion is classica lly studied with referen ce to the body, int~res ti~g
patterns emerge when we compare different biolo gical systems across specI~s. DIf-
ferent speci es not only have different physical appearances, ~ut also ~~ve dlfferent
molecular structures and different chromosomal conflg urations. Th s lSnot unex -
pected, sin ce the processes of speciation and evolution involv~ changes in gene s,
chro mosomes, an d bodi es. .
And yet, when wc compare genes, chrom os o me~, and .bod~es acros s spec~es,
we find that although th ey all track the same bological his tories of the species,
they ne vertheless have.undergone differen t kinds of cha ncee and different amo un~s
of changes. Th us, although differences in DN A markers, chrom osome stru cturc,
and physical form are aH in sorn e sense "genetc " "". find t~e .first largely n~n
adap tive ,1Od de penden! on time; th e second involved m sp eciation: and th e thrd e
pr io cipally in adaptation.
I
At ro ugh ly the same amount of divergen ce in genetic ma rkers,.a macaq~e and
baboon are similar chrom osomal1y, and somewhat different physically: a gibbo n
and a siamang are a1so somewhat differen t physi cally; but very different ch rom .o-
som ally; and a human and a gorilla are slightly dfferen t chrom osomalIy, but qu te
d stin ct physicaHy. We m gbt interpret th is to mean th at eac~ membcr of the th ree
pairs of species diverged from the other at rou ghly the same tI.me;th e ma c.aque an d
baboon are similarIy adapted, but th eir speciati on did not involve chromosome
 l OS C HAP TER 6 BU ILD ING BET TER MONKEYS
changes; the gibbon and siamang are similarly adapted, and their speciation did
involve chromosome chenge, and the human and gorilla are differently adapted,
and their speciation is reinforced by chromosom al change.
Genetic change is governed principally by the processes of mutation and
genetic drift, since most DNA changes are not expressed pheno typically (sincc
most DNA is not genic). Moreover, even within genes, many mutations cause no
discernible change to the pro tein product and thus are "neut ral"-or nearly so. By
contrast, anatomicaI vartation, which may arise by genetic or physiological means,
is nct only expressed outwardly (by defnition), but also is Iikely lo affect the
organ ism's opp ort unities to survive and reprod uce.
Thu s, when comparing their respective subjects in two different species, a
geneticist and an anatom ist will usually lnterpret their results quite differently. The
anatomist examines the dfferences between the species and asks what functions
are thereby served and what sclective pressures may have led to the divergence in
formo Change requ ires an explanation, and stability does noto The anatom ist,
assuming that if thin gs work then they don't chango, does not ask "Why did these
creatures remai n quadrupedal?," but rather, "Why did this oth er creature become
bpedal]" Th e answer comes by recourse to directional selection.
The geneticist, 00 the oth er hand , assumes mutat ion is a constant proccss, and
therefore expects two DNA sequences from different speces to be different from
one anot her. Wha t requres explanation in the genetic comparison is not the
obsc rvation ofdifference between the speces, but rather, the observation of simi-
larity. Regtons of evolutionary conservetion suggest sorne functional mportance,
and thus lhe inability of thal particular stretch of DNA lo tolerate ehange Iike
other DNA stretches. The geneticist asks, "Why are these two stretches of DNA
more similar than the surrounding sequencest," and answers by recourse to nor-
malizing selecton.
DEVELOPMENTAL GENETICS
This, in fact, was the way that the homecb ox was d scovered, a stretch ofabo ut 180
bases of DNA, cod ing for abo ut 60 amlno aclds In a prctein, which appears virtu -
ally intact in species as diverse as fruit flies and people. Since there is little else that
appears intact whe n you compare those species, it stood to reason that these
sequences were doing something importan r. The genes that contai ned them had
bizarre and extraordinary effects when mutate d. such as converti ng a Oy's ant ennas
into lcgs. V\'e now know that the genetic region enco des a protein that binds to
DNA, thus swrchng particular genes "on" and regulatm g a cascade of physolog
leal events early in the development of the organism oAnd even though flies and
peop Ie develop very differently; the genes that control that development have
nteresn ng similarities.
Thehomeo box genes in fruit tlies are fou nd in two clusters, known as bitho-
rax and antennapedia, a total ofle ss than ten such genes. In human s, on the otba
han d, there are four clusters of home obox genes-c-on chromosomes 2, 7, 11, and
Developmental Genetics 109
17-each with about 10 such genes, and several more "orphan" homeobox genes
scattered throughout the genome, for a total of about 50. They appear to be inti-
mately involved in establishing the axes of growth and development for the body:
frontlbaek (eranial/eaudal), lop/botlom [ventral/dorsal}, and inward/outward
(proximal/distal). Bach gene in the cluster is turn ed on in a precise sequence,
along these axes-in vertebrates and flies, despite the few resemblances of devel-
opment between tHem. .
This intersection of molecular genetcs. evoluti on, and developm ental blOl- ~
ogy is know n colloqually as "evo-devo" and ho pes to resolve the question of how :
major differences in body form arise. A related field is "epigenetics," which studi~s
not the genes involved.in embryo n.ic dfferent aton , but t~e de: elopmental orr- [ . (f)-f}-Cf\.8
gins of pheno types, which may not involve permanent mod fcaton s to DNA, t~e <" -V~ .,.
subjects of "genetics." In a sense, evo-devo does it from the genes up. and epl- _
genetics from the phenotype down. .
Centra l to the study of epigenetics are the concepts of plasticity and canaliza-
tion, initially formu lated by the developmental geneticist C. H. Waddington in the
mid-twentieth century. Plasticity is also known as adaptebiliry, the property of the
organism to adjust to its particular conditions oflife. The se adjustm ents may be
short term and reversible, like the adjustme nt of blood flow to the extremities
under temporary conditions of extreme cold: or they m~y be long term and irre -
versible, like the adjustment of growth to the conditions of nut rition .
Waddin gton's nsght was to recognize plasticity or adaptability as a gencn -
cally controlled system in and of itself, with attendant al1elic variation, and there-
{ore subject to selecton In other word s, there could be selection for alleles not so
much encoding a particular trait , but for facilitating the produ ction of the trait
under particular circumstan ces, thus permitting the organism to react in an adap-
tive fashion to thc shockof thc circumstances. For example, when exposed to ether
early in development, genetically nor mal fruit tlies frequently die, but sometimes
they live and develop a weird pathological condi tion called "bthorax"-a second
thorax behind the first. Since th s is stimulated by ether, it is simply an acquire d
trait. Waddington selected and bred rhose flies that developed th e phenotypc
readily and began to reduce the dosage of ethe r needed to induce the trait. Soon he
had flies developing the condition und er minimal ethe r stimulation; and in a few
generatons, he had developed a strain of flies that developcd the bithorax pheno-
type without any ether at aH!
Wadd ington ha d super flcally reproduced the patte rn of Larnarcks "inheri-
tance of acquire d characterlstcs"-although within a strictly modern Mendeli an
framework. He had selected for the genes that control the organtsms ability to
adapt, or to redirect ts development nthe face of a particula r environmenta l
stimulus. Th e selection actually consisted of two phas es. Initially, the sclccted
flies were the most adaptable, for they had the greatest ability to react-to amend
their developmcnta l trajector y-under the altered circu msta nces (eth er), and
that feature was selected. The second phase of selection was for the genes th at
stabilize the prod uction of the ncw phenotype, so tha t what was once a weird and
 110 CHAPT ER 6 BUilDI N G BET T E R M ONK'E YS
rare developmental anoma ly became, in this strain of flies, the "norma l" out-
come . The genetic system produced the bizarre phenotype under progressively
diminishi ng stimuIation.
Waddi ngton called this property "canalizaton"- a phenotype's genetc buff-
erng, such that it tends to be expressed in spite of the damaging effccts of muta-
tion and environ ment-in other words, the ability of the bod y to make a "normal"
. phenotype . In this case, he was able to select for canalization, thus "nor malizing"
a trait that is ord inarily distinctly abnormal. He invoked the image of a ball rolling
along a grooved surface, with each deepenng groove symbolizing a developmen-
tal trajectory. Early in its cou rse, the ball has a number of opton s, but the furth er
along it rolls, the deeper its path goes, and the more difficult it is to alter. Plasticity
here is the ability to take a different course, early in developrnent : canalization is
the property of stckng to that course.
In more tangible terms, on e might imag ine an ape several million years ago
with the ability to walk 0 0 all four s, or occasionally uprtght , as modern apes
can . The evoluti on of bipedalism is conscque ntly genetically problematic, for it
is not so much the change from e ne status (quadrupedalism) to anot her (biped-
alism), but rather a cha nge from facultative bipedalism to o bligate bipedal-
ism - an ape tha t could occasionally walk on two legs eventually evolved into
one which can essentially do nothing but that. T hus, it seem s to involve a choice
or dccision in an anci ent ancestra l species th at has become ingrained or
inscri bed into our chro mosomes. Genetically. it sounds almos t inescapably
Lamarc kian . But the cvolution of bipedalism in hu man ancestry might not
involve changes in a gene "for" an inward poi nted knee , a gene ' for" an arched
foot , a gene "for" an aligned big toe, and for all the othe r features of hu man
locomotor anatomy-but rather mi ght involve a concept ually simpler system in
which genes were selected for their genera l effccts on modeling bon es in
response lo the hablt ofwalking upr ght (ad aptabtlty): and subsequcntly, other
genes were selected for the ir ability to ma ke th is suitc of pben.nypc fcatu res
devclop regularly and easily (canalization).
ALLOMETRI C G RO WTH
Waddington's radical departu re here was to recognize the lack of fit bctwcen pat-
terns of genec variation and pattern s of phenotyp ic variation: consequenrlj. hs
work doesn't try to relate the action of specifie genes to speciflc body parts. Once
we aeknowledge epigenetics, the systemic genetic cont rol of development, we are
in a position to back away from the ordinary modes of though t relating mutant
genes to broken bodes, and simply look at bod es in relation to one another.
Physical growth is not simply expansion oIike a balloon. Different parts of
the body grow at different rates. A young child has a relativcly largc head: the
chlds body will grow mo re over th e course of the child 's Jife tha n its head will.
Isometric growth describ es an equal rate of growth i ~l dfferent physical struc-
tu res: allomct ric growt h describes a d fferent rate of growt h. Tracking the growth
Allometric Growth III
of the hody in relation lo the head, for examp le, would be a study of develop-
mental aBometry.
Patterns of developmental allome try dffer from species to species. The
face of a chm panzee. for examp le, grows markedly outward over th e cou rse of
its life. Thus, a baby chm panzee. relative to its adult form , has a flat, small face
and a large, rou nd skull. And consequently, a baby chimpanzee 100ks consider-
ably more like a hum an than an ad ult chimpa nzee doe s. This has suggested to
sorne researchers that hum an evolut ion has involved neoteny. the preservatio n
of th e infant ile form in adu lts. A classic example of th is is the axolotl, a Central
Amer ican salamande r that never act ually becomes an ad ult, but retains its gills
and fin s into adu1thood, and reprod uces in what appears to be the larval form
of its closest rclatives.
And yet, human evolutlon has followed a quite different trajcctory th an
axolotl cvolution . Human s are not ape infants, reprod ucing without ever
entering adult hoo d; rather, hu man s grow for a cons iderably longer perio d
than apes do. Other parts of th e body grow quit e beyond the ape's growlh tra -
jecto ry; for example, th e overall body pro portion s-which emphasize th e
trunk in a baby, and thc legs in an adult. In fact, th c relatio n of the face to the
skull is o ne of the very few places in th e human body where yo u can actua lly
seem to sce neoteny. .
Nevertheless, the infant face-with small jaws, small broad nose, big eyes and
forehead-seems to resonate with us at a very fundamental level. Th is is probably
why popular images of space aliens so often have these very features.
The most basic knd of allometric growth is functional allometry, the change
in forro required to preserve equivalent function at a different size. Many physical
processes are limited by th e relevant geometric area: for cxarnple. the respiratio n
of an nscct through the exposed surface area of its skin, or the strength of a bone
in propor tion to its cross-section, And yet. regardless of the bio physical con -
straints uf area (a two-dimensional quantlty), animals are thrce-dimensional
bengs. with volurne and mass.
The problem of functional allometry is simply that as an organism increases
in size, a muscle or bone that on ce functioned efficiently bccomes less ablc to do
so. Imagine a creature tripling in every linear measurement: since the strength of
abone is proportional to its cross-sectional arca, that bon e is now nin efold stron-
ger (th c square of the linear mea surement). But the work it has to do, to supp ort a
mass, has increased 27-iold (the cube of th e linear measurement). In order to work
as efficiently. the bon e must compensate by increasing in width even more tha n
the simple expan sion it has already undcrgone-e-otherwsc, the larger animal will
be crushe d by its own weght .
This is why if you look et the skeleton of a small mamm al and a Iarge maroma!
redu ced to the same sze, the bon es of the larger animal are sull stouter- that is the
only way the larger animal can cxist in nature. And that is why you cannot ha~e a
S-foot mouse (or a SO-foot person, for that matter), without d ramatically changing
the design of its body to preserve function at this larger size.
 112 C H A PTE R 6 BU I LD IN G BET TER MO N KE YS
EXTINCTION
The flip side of speciation-the origin of lineages- is extinct on, th e terrnination
of lineages. We identify two kind s of extinction: ba ckground and rnass extinction,
each with different con sequences for the subs equ en t history of life. Just as speca-
tion (at the species "level") is analogous to b irth (at the organ isrnal "leve}") so, loo,
is extinction analogous to death.
Backgroun d extinctio n is sirnply th e result of the or dina ry course of the strug-
gle for existence. Sorne fal to survive an d die out. Sooner or later, everyon e dles,
and so do species. In the case ofbackground exti n ctions, the or gan ism al death rate
simply exceeds the birt h rate oThe reasons for th s, of course, may vary from case
to case. Here, th e extinc tion of a speces has a m inimal effect 0 0 the ecosystem,
sinc e it occu rs grad ually and ha s been supplanted by another species filling its
ecological n che.
Mass exnction, on the other hand, involves th e near-simultaneou s termina-
tlon of many cIosely and distantly related lineages. This, of course, is superficially
sim ilar to what Cuvier had prop osed in the early 1800s lo be the main engine pro-
pellin g the history of life 00 earth. We now realize that wh ile it is a rarity. it is a
sign ificant part of evolution ary theo ry, an d it h as interesti ng ecological causes and
consequences.
The rarity of m ass extinc tions is shown by the fact th at th ey occur in intervals
on the scale of tens of m illion s of years. The mos t famo us ma ss extinc tion occurred
65 m illion years ago, elimi na ting the dnosaurs, as well as m any other vert ebrates
of th e air and sea. and d iverse kinds of invertebra tes as well. However, that mass
extin ction was small potato es compared to th e on e at th e end of the Per mian era,
marking th e begin ning of the Triassic, about 250 milli on ycars ago. That one killed
off th e trilob ites, aboul 90% of the species living in th e seas, and abou t 70% ofla nd
vertebrates, as well as many plant species. Other ma ss extinctio ns appea r to have
occu rr ed at the end of the Or dovician, about 438 mili ion years ago, and at the end
of the Triasstc, 200 million years ago.
Th e caus es of mass extinction s ar e still the subjec t of co nt roversy, but it is
widely he ld th at they m ay be trigger ed by th e impact of an astero id or meteor
with the ear th. trigger in g an ecological catast rop he th at onl y sma ll proport ion
of sp ecies ma na ge to su rvive. Sin ce the sp ecific na tu re of the catastrophe is
largely unpred ictable, the sur viving speci es m ay be unpredictable as well. Con-
seq ue ntly, the ro le of mass extinct ions is far more chaotic th an that of back-
gro un d extinction s.
The survi ving species that ma ke it tb rou gh the catastrophe find th em selves in
an ecologtcal gold rush, with everyone getti ng rich. w th hardly any competition
fro m oth er species, the surviving species mu Itiply and diversify d rarnaticalIy to fill
the ecological space left vacant. Th is, of course, is precisely what we see am ong the
mammals, foHowing th e extinc tion of the dinosaurs.
Ot h er m ass extinctions ha ve had more mu nd an e causes. Th e ent ry of hum ans
into new lan ds has almost invariably bro ught with it the elirnin ation of m any local
Classification 113
spec les. either hunted out o r "squeezed" out by the destruction of the ir habitats.
Th is was th e case in Madagascar about 1,500 years ago, where large ma m mals an d
br ds d isapp ear from the archaeological reco rd sho rtly after the arrival of people,
and in the New World 12.000 years ago, where ma ny large species of animals ds-
appear sh or tly after the widespread presence of people.
Since th e con sequ ences of a mas s ext in ction are u npredi ctable, it is prob-
ably a goo d thing to avod, f possible. Alas, if th ey were avoidable, they probably
wouldn't b e mas s extinctions !
CLASSIFICATIO N
Perhap s th e mo st basic hum an th ought process is d assiflcatc n, th e act of impos-
ing or der upon a set of data; decid ing that this is a kind of (hat. and tha t something
new an d unfamiliar Is actuaHy rath er like somethin g already known. H um ans do
thi s un lversally, and anthropologists have long app reciated th at understand ing
how p eoplc classify can afford a significant look into how they see the world and
react to it.
O ne important example is how peop le classify the ir relatives. Th ere are
many ways to do th is, involving the intersec tio n of a few key variables: sex, gen-
erat ion, laterality, and marriage. For example, we d ifferentiate betwccn u ncIe an d
aunt on th e basis of sex, but no t be tween their ch ildren,' aH of wh om are "cous-
in s," We give the sam e term to relatives o n mo ther's side an d on father's side
(which gene ralIy ha rm oni zes with the gene tic relationships), but we also give
th at term to blood relatives (such as our m others brot he r) an d non -blood rela-
tives (such as th e hu sband of our mother's sister )- wh ich does not h arrnoni ze
with the genetic relations hips.
Th ere are, obviously, rnany ways to juggle th ese variables to irnpose sorne kind
of or der on social relationship s with in the family th at will be broad ly sim ilar to the
gene tic relationsh ips, bu t distinct from them . For example, we could decide tha t all
the male ch ildren of ou r patern al grandparents are "father" (as in the system clas-
sically called "Hawaian"): and con sequently, all th e m ale childr en of our "fatbcrs"
are "brothers" (even th ougb that would inelude cousins) .
The point h ere is that n o kinship systcm pe rfectly reflects na tural relation -
ships, and all simply impose ord er and meaning upon the social un iverse.
Simil arly, all h uman societies classify anima ls and plants int o grou ps ba sed on
their m ean ing ful simila rities and d ifferen ccs- whic h may correspond ro ugbly to
tbeir natural pro perties, but wh ich may be divergenl in oth er ways. Thus, tbe Bibte
tells us (in Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14) that the ancien t Hebrews classified
anim als in accordance witb two pr incipies: whe re th ey lived and h ow th ey moved .
Their majar division was air dwclling, land dwelling, or sea dwelling; an d with in
each category were gro ups ba sed on th e st ruc ture of their limb s and how th ey used
them . Within the category of land dwelling, for example, we find th ose with
hooves, those with paws. those that creep or swarm, those that travel on th eir bclly,
and th ose with many feet, Within the category of sea dwellng, they separated
 114 C H A PTE R 6 BUILDI NG BETT ER M O N KEYS
those with fins and scales from those without fins and scales; and in the ar, they
dvided tho se that fly from those that have four feet and swarm, and those with
wings and jo inted legs that swarm.
The purpose of thi s c1assifieation was to teUpeopIe what they could eat. Ani-
mals that swar m, with four feet, could not be eaten; while those that swarm, with
wings and jointed legs, eouId be eaten . The Iatter category ineludes the grasshop -
per, locust, and crtcket: and sorne centuries later, we leaen that indeed the pious
Iohn the Baptist lived in the desert eating loeusts (Matthew 3:4).
Of course, this classification produeed sorne resuIts that we would now con-
sider artifici al. or even unnatural. For exarnple, the weasel, mouse, gecko, ehame-
leon, lizard, and crocodile are all in a single category, one that subsumes sorne
amp hibians , sorne reptiles, and sorne inarnmaI s. And yet, by the criteria of this
classfcaton, the category is an entirely natural one, for it encompasses grou nd-
dwelling an imals tha t swarm or crawl (and forbids the ir consumption).
SYST EM ATI CS AN D PHYL O GENY
Science orders species as well, but does so in accordance with different criteria-
evolutionary relationships. The general system we use involves the possession of
cert ain key or essential attributes-say, a backbone, or scales, or four limbs- and
assigns speces to categories based on what they have. This practice goes back at
least to Ar stotle (ca. 320 BC), and while sim ilar to what the ancient Hebrews were
dcin g, it has a very dfferent purpc se-enot to tell you what to eat, but to repro duce
the general patterns nature has produced and to give us a commo n vocab ulary
with which to study and discuss them.
The person who formalized and standa rdized the scientific classification of
animals and plants was an eighteent h-cent ury Swedisb botanist and physician ,
CarJ Linnaeus. Linn aeus published un der bi s Latini zed name, Caro lus Lin-
naeus; and was enno bled late in Ife, renamed Carl von Linn. His system
invo lved assig ning each species a place witbin a nested herarchy, a set of cate-
gories begi nn ing with the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms, and
becomin g in creasingly restrictive. At the bottom, the most restrictive category
was the speces, th e smalJest category. (See Figur e 6.2; in a few ver y rare cases,
incl uding humans, Linnaeus inven ted subspe cies below spec ies, as we see in
_....,_ chaptee 9.)
Mode rn scentlfic classification officially dates itself from the tenth cditio n
(1758) of LinnaeuS' lfes work, The System 01 Na ture, In It, Linnaeus gave each
specles a two-part Latin llame, a terse description , and a place in the nested nar-
ur al order. His species Lcmur catta, for example, was one of three species he tec -
ognized with in the genus Lemur, itse1fone of the four genera within the order
Primate s, one of the orders of the class Marnmalia, within the kingdom Animalia.
(By convention, we gfve the species and genus name s in italics or underlined.) A
different species. Horno sap ens. was one of two species of Horno (Linnaeus named
th e other Horno troglodytes, and mistakenJy asslgned the more anthropom orphic
Systematics and Phylogeny llS
Ani malia
Mamm alia I Othtr
d asses
O"",
Primates I erd ers
Lemur Horno Other genera
>OlU'
~/lQ
1
I I H" ..."
~ . M
Other species
Figure 6.2. In the Unnaean syste m. species are assigned a place in relation
to one anoth er.
descriptions of apes to it), a dfferent genus within the ord er Primates, class Mam -
malla, and king dom Animalia.
It took anoth er century befare science was able to explain what that partero
meant. Charles Darwin is the one who accomplished that, being the first to
advance the idea that speccs in the same genu s shared a recent comm on aneestry;
those in dfferent genera shared a more remote commo n ancestry; and those
unitcd by falling into even higher taxa shared an even more distant ancestry. This
was what Buffon had recognized a eentury earlier, but rejected (chapter 2). 1'0 a
first approximation, then, the Linnacan hierarchy recapitulated evolution ary hs-
tory. Living species were divergent deseendants of now-lost ancestors, which pos -
sessed the generalized characteristics of the genus: members of divergent genera
were divergent descendants of ancestors that possessed the generalized character-
istics of the family (a level that had been introdu ced between the genus and ard er
by Linnaeus' followers).
Th e study of the relationshps amon g species is called systematics; and obvi-
ously "relationships" is a fairIy broad term o It might mean that ene spedcs is the
ancestor of ano ther; or it might mea n that they are closely related and look similar;
or it might mean that they are closely related but look different because one has
divcrged radically frorn the other ; or it might mean that whatever similarities they
possess are eonvergences du e to adapting to eommo n ecological circumsta nces.
Studying the sysrematics of the species of interest allows us to understan d aspects
of ther phylogeny-the evolutionary history, and the patterns of ancestry and
divergence that pro duced them .
Our goal, of course, is to und erstand the evolution of the species in question.
Understanding their phylogeny is crucial. But two scentfic sehools of thought
exist on how to use that kn owledge to organi ze the species into meaningful cate-
gories, as Linn aeus did .
Linnaeus was hampered by the limited knowledge ofhis day, For example, he
believed the bats (VespertiNo) were a kind of prim ate, and placed them in the pri-
mate order. To sorne extent, then , our c1assification of anim als rnust negotiate a
path between the stability that permits us to talk about groups witho ut ambiguity
and the fl exibility that aIlows us te mod ify our groups as our knowledge of them
beeomes more cIcar.

116 C H A PT ER 6 BU I LD I NG BET TE R MON KEYS
CLASS ICAL AN D CLA DI SnC TA XONOM Y
~ lar, and are eco logic ally similar. in t he same category. T he disadvantage is th at it
Th e criteria that pe ople use to constru ct their classificat ions- the mental pro-
cesses behi nd the act of classifyng-c-co nsttute taxonorny. Ob viously different cul-
tural groups have th eir own taxonomic systems for ordering the spec es th ey
encoun ter, an d for d ecid ing that "th s" is a kind oft hat" There are two competing
systems of taxon orny in science at pr esent. " we co uId no t groups the turtle and cro eodile together, ap ar t from th e bird s. Rathe~,
The first is known as classical or evolutionar ytaxoncmy, and utilizes two criteria:
descen t and divergence. This system attempts to replicate in a c1assification the phylo-
gen etic relationships among species, yct also ackn owledgcs that there are sorne times
when it may be bett er not to do so. Those times oecur wh en one group of species
evolves very rapidly, an d so becomes verydfferent from its closest relatives; in such a
case, it may be useful to recognize th e diver gent group as one category and the oncs it
left behn d as another, even though they may not be each others' closest relativcs.
Consider th e rclationsh ips among living brds, crocodiles, and tu rtles. We
represent those rcla tionship s with a basic diagr am called a cladogram (Figure 6.3),
which sim ply dep icts species by th eir recen cy of com m on ances try. Two species
joined by a common no de shared a common an cestor not shared by the sp ecies
outside tha t node. A cluster of species defined by a no de (comprising a "V " in the
cladogram ) is a clade, and comprises a set of closest relatives.
Deta iled studies of th e head , pelvis, and gen es nd icate that crocodiles are
mor e closely related to birds th an th ey are to turtles. Th e reason birds and cro co-
diles don't look ver y similar is that birds diverged radic ally from th eir d ose rela-
tives, and esse ntially "flew away,' leaving a diverse assemblage of scaly, green,
crawly creatures behind. Classically, we would place the birds in the class Aves,
and the turtl e and cro codle in the class Rep tilia-nevertheIess ackn owledging
th at th e organisms constituted by the "reptiles" actuaUy ph yIogene ticalIy subsume
th e on es con stituted by "btrds," In other word s, th ese two group s are not equiva-
lent: birds are a clos ely related group of species; and reptiles are not, for the b rds
actua lly fall within th em . Birds bere are monoph ylctic (all ver y closely related ),
whil c reptiles are para phyletc (no t each others' closest relatives because th ey are
missing some spcces that d verged fro m them ). Paraph yletic catcgories are un ited
by sh aring anc ient, primitive Iraits or states: e ne of th e most fam ou s para ph yletic
categories (no longer widely used ) is "inverleb rates"- cre atures unified by not
havng evolved a bac kbo ne, obviously a m otley group.
Figure 6.3. Ahhough birds and crocodiles are most dosely related, we
can assoclate the turtles and crocodlles as ' re ptiles" and ernp hastze t he
difference of the birds (left) or group the clcsest relatives together, and
incorporare birds into "reptil es" (right).
Phylogenetics 117
T he ad van tag e of th is system s that it retains creatur es th at loo k rath er sim i-
ap plies criteria incansi ste ntly and creates gro ups that are n.ot. equiv~lent ..
An alternative system of c1assification is kn own as cladistc classfication. Here,
a single criteri on - prorirnity of descent- is strin gentIy applied, so tha~ all nam ed
uni ts (or taxa) constitu te a set of closest relatives. Thus, in the exam ple glVen aboye.
we wo uld h ave to gro ups the bi rds an d cra codiles together, for th ey are each othe r s
closest relatives here, and sepa rate th em from th e tu rtl es. A cladistic or phyloge-
netic classfcati on , then, calls al! three groups "Reptilia " and places the turtles in
one gro up (Ana psd a), an d the bird s an d crocodiles in ano the r (Diaps ida )".
The advantage of th is system is that it appli es a single entenon consistently;
The disadvantage is th at it comes up with wei rd cIusters of animals, who happ en
to be each other's closest relatives but do not look very m uch alike-because we ar e
diseounting th e elernent of divergence in evolution.
O ne is obli ged to make a choice. an d decid e wh ich criteria ar e ~ore use~~I,
and th us which system to adopt oHere we ado pt the pos ition th at classcal Reptlia
(green sealy crawly creatures, or "crocodlles plus tu rt lcs minus bird s"? is a useful
group to recogni ze, even f it is par aphyletie -for the eme rge nce .and d vergenc e of
bird s was a great adaptive step in the h isto ry of t hat group of ~01 mals. . .
By th e same token , we classieally ide ntify two paraphylett c groups In th e PrI-
ma tes: the pro sim ians (wh ich will acknowledge th e divergen ce of th e an ccsto rs of
rnonkeys, apes, and humans into a niche of diu rn al sociali ty and ntell gence): an d
the grea t ap es (wh ich wll acknowledge th e divergenee of the biped al ancestor s of
hum ans). T his is no t a qu asi-mystic al state ment, exalting h umans ap ar t from other
pri mates, but simp ly an acknowle dgment tha t, like oth er grea t divergen~es .in th e
history of life, th at of humans from the apes constituted a radical and sign iflcant
evolutionary dep artur e from its close relatives.
PHYLO GEN ETICS
The m ost basic questi on we can ask, as wc t ry to im part sorne scientifie ard er to
th e species on earth, s. Of th ree species, whch two are m ost clo sely related ?
O nc import ant lesso n to be glean ed [roro th e preceding discussion is t~at
overall similarity may not be a good guide to pro xim ity of de scent. Two spe ctes
may be ve ry similar b ecau se t hey ar e clos est relatives, or sim ply beeause sorne-
thing else dvergcd radically fro m them . Hopefully th at was evide nt in the cro co -
dle-turtle-bird ex am pleab ove.
Now co ns ide r a chimpanzee, or angutan, and a hum an . T he ch impanzce an d
the orangutan h ave Jar ge can in e teeth. lon g arm s, long thick bod y hair, and grasp -
ing feet. They are obviously similar kin ds of creat ures, close relatives. But are they
the closest relatives of the th ree specics under consid eration?
W h at we are as k ng is a very basic questio n of biological h istory. Ar e the
features sh ared by the ch im panz ee an d orangutn p res ent becaus e they are
 ' 118 C HA PT ER 6 BU ILDlNG BET T E R MO N KE YS
in her itances fro m a recent common ancestor that that also shared them, to the
exc1usion of the human line? Or are they, rather, ho ldove rs from a long period of
cornmon ancestry, from which hum ans have simply d verged
The dfference between these two alternatives can be formalized and general-
ized. Overa ll similarity can ten you that species are generally closely related, to a
first approximation. Hut to ten which two species are most dosely related, overall
similarity won't do. A specal subset of similarities mu st be disce rned : derived sim-
ilariti es, or evolutionary novelties (synap omorphies).
Once again, let us look at a single character; canin e tooth size. We obse rve that
chimpanzees and orangutans both have large ones, and hu mans have small ones.
Thus, large and smal l canines constitute two character states. Clearlyan evolunon.
ary change has occurred. Either small' canines evolved into large canines in the
ancestor of chimpan zees and oranguta ns (which would make large canines a
shared derived cha racter), or else they shrank in the ancestor of hum ans (which
would make Iarge canines an ancestral character, retained passively in the other
twc lineages). We need to establish the polarity of the evolutionary event: Was it a
change from small to large canines, oc frorn large to sma ll canines?
The most basic test s an outgroup comparison, Its logic goes like this. We
kno w (because we find two charac ter states) that an evolutionary event oceurred
with in the group constituted by chimp anzees, orangutans, and hum ans- whose
precise relationships we are trying to work out. The charac ter state that carne first,
the ancestral state, shou ld be prcserved in species that diverged before the group
und er consideration, and which s thus now somewhat more distantly re1ated to
them . If we examine such a species-say, a baboon- we will see that ir has large
canines. Thus, large canines s the ances tral state for the group we are ntcrested
in-chimpanzees, orangutans, and humans. That, in turn, means that the cvolu-
tion ary event in question was a reduction in cani ne sizc in humans: and thus, the
po ssesson ofl arge cante es in chimpanzces and oran guta ns is me rely an ancestral
retention, and there by not a rellable indicator that they are closest relatives.
Th is logic can be applied to any kind of comparative data. Por example, if we
exami ne the fine structure of the cnzyme carbo nic anhydrase 1, we find that lIw
38th amino acid in the human form of the en zyme is threonine. It is also threoni ne
in the chimpanzee. But in the orangutan's form of that en zyrne, the 38th amino
acid is alanin e. Here we see again two character states, but the shared state is
between hu man and chimpanzee. 15 this a shared evolutio nar y novelty [synapc -
morphy), or an ancestral retention ?
Once again, we look to th e baboon for guidan ce, in th e expectation that it will
retain the ancestral state, since it presumably d iverged from these three bcforc the
evolutionary event that occ urred among them took place. The corrcspondmg
amino acid in the baboo ns form of the protein is alanin e. (See Table 6.].)
Thus, the character state shared by human and chimpanzee {th reoni nc) is the
der lvcd one, which in turn im plies that the evolutionary event was a chan ge from
alanine to th reonine in a recent conunon ancestor of. h uman and chmpan zee.
Th us, bu mans and chimpanzees are probably closest relatives, by this bit of data.
Lim itation s ofth e Phylogenetic Me thod 119
Tabl e 6.1. The d istributionof two cha racters in th ree taxa and an outgroup (babo ons).
CARBONIC A NHYDRAS E I
CAN IN E SIZ E AMI NO ACIO #38
Human Small Threonine
Ch impa nzee Large Threonine
Orangutan l arge Alanine
Baboon l arge Alanine
LlM ITATI O NS OF TH E PH YLO GEN ETIC METHOD
Like all manners of produci ng knowledge, the outg roup met hod of establishin g
the polarity of an evolutionary event-to determine whether the features sharcd
by species are der ived or ances tral, and thu s reliable determi nants ofa recent com -
mon ancestry-works well to a first approximation . It does, however, make sorne
cruci al assumptions that mu st always be considered.
For exam ple, we are assum ing that evolution is parsimonious, or sparing, in
its activity. In other words, we assume that evolutionary events are fairIy infre-
quent and consequently,that specific sim ilarities are mo~e likely to be the result of
a single cvolutio nary event in a cc m mon ancestor than of two different evolutton-
ary events occ ur ring in parallel in separate lneages. Th e evolution of a similarity
in different lineages independentIy is called homoplasy.
Suppose we us ed "long hair on th e hea d" as a character, and exam ined
humans, com mo n ch impan zees, and bonobos (someti mes called "pygmy chm -
panzees"), The two spedes that share this trat are bonob os and hu mans, even
tho ugh virtu ally everyth ng else shows that bon obos and co mmon chi mpanzees
are each other's closest relatives. We don't find oth er apes with this character,
either, so it doesn't seem to be an ancest ral reten tion (that ls, a result of the
red uct io n of head hair in co mmon chim panzees). Rath er, it seems to be sorne-
thing th at was in de pendently acquired in both the hu man lineage and in th e
bon obo Ilncage.
Th e choice of the autgroup may not be simple, and m ust be mad e carefuliy,
Ideally, the outgroup should be the "next-closest" reJative to the species un der con-
sideratio n. In the h uman-chmpanzee-orangutan example, the gorilla would be a
very bad choice of outgroup, for it would in fact be an ingroup , that is. Iallng
among the species under consideration . There would thu s be no reason 10 th ink
that the gorilla's character state is Iikely to be the ancestr al on e (although in the
case of the can ne teeth, it is). In a similar fashio n, if the cho sen outgroup falls
too far out side the species being considered, the outgroup is likelier to have been
subject to para llel evoluuon of the trait in question . A mouse, for exarnple, Is in a
different taxonomic order (Rodentia), and has lost its canine teeth entirely; it is
thus valueless in the example of can ne size in the apes.
Additionally, not all characters are cqually useful in such a study. Ideally you
need a chara cter th at exists in two states amon g the three species being con sidered :
 120 C HAPTER 6 BU ILDI NG BET T ER MON KEYS

but you do n't want it to be too variable in other species. The more the trait vares
amang speces generally, the less likely is the chosen outgrou p to be retaining its C HA PTE R 7
conser vative, ancestr al state. Thus, a trait like "har colorat on" is rather too diverse
to be of valu in a cladistic study, witho ut many other assumptions about its evo.
Iution: it varies from dark to pale in humans, is dark in chimpanzees and gorillas,
red in orangutans, and Is quite variable in gibbons.
Is That an Ape in Your Genes, or
REFERENCES AND FURT HER READING
Ca rroll. S. B. 1995. Hom eotic genes and th e evolution of ar thro pods and cho rda tes. Nature
Are You [ust Glad to See Me?
376,479- 485.
Cart mill, M . 1994. A critique of homology ~s a m orphological conce p t. American /ournal of
(On the Place of Humans
Physical Anthropology 94:115- 123.
D upr , J. 1995. The DisorderofThings: Metaphysical Foundat ons ofthe Disunty ofScence. in the Natural Order)
Ca m b rid ge, MA: Harvard Un iver sity Press.
Eld redge, N., and J. Crac raft. 1984. Phylogenetic Patterns and the Evolutionary Process:
Method and Theory in Comparative Biology. New York: Co lum bia Un iver sity Press. TH EM E
Flatt , T. 2005. The evolutlonary genetlcs of canalzatlon. Quarterly Review of Biology
80,287-3 16. The study of primate diversity and origins is the beginning of our scientific .n ar ~a .
tive of who we are and where we carne from. As such, it is a narrative of kinshlp,
Godfrey, L. R., and J. Marks 1991. The natu re an d orlgins of p rim ate spec es. Yearbook of
Physical Anthropology 34:39-68. the culturally specific knowledge that orients people in,their universe, and is often
Go uld S. J. 2002 . The Structure oJEvotutionary Theory. Cambrid ge, MA: Harvard Univers ity contested. A scientific narrative of kinship carries cultur al authority, and ce nse-
Press. -quently must be invoked very judiciou sly.
Graur; D., an d Li Wen Hsiu ng. 2000. Pundamentals oJMolecular Evout on. 2nd ed. Su nde r-
Ian d, MA: Sin auer Associates. Our primate origins are not very surprising. Our resemblances to the prim ates are
Gr oves, C. 2004. Th e why, wh at, and how of pri m at e taxono my. International loum a oJ recorded in many native terms for the primates who live aroun d them : "man oC the
Primatology 25:1105- 1126. woods," "ghosts of the forest," and the like. Cicero records that around 200 B ~,
H ull, D. L. 1970. Cont emporery system atc phllosophie s. Annual Review of Ecology and Quintu s Enn ius commented on "how similar we are to mo nkeys, the most ho rn d
Systematfcs 1:1 9- 54.
of creatures," Nearly two milJenni a larcr, Linnneus quoted that line in The System
Marks, J. (2007 ) An th ropological taxonomy as bo th subject an d object: The conse q uences
ofNature.
of descent from Darw in an d Durkheirn . Anthropology Today 23:7-1 2.
The ssue, it seems, is not so much ou r similarity to the primates but what that
Martn, R. 1990. Primate Origins and Evo/ution: A Phylogenetic Reconstruction. London:
Chap man and Ha ll. similarlty means. To Linnaeus' generation, in the mid-eighteenth century, it meant
Mayr, E. 1963. Animal Species and Evolution. Cam brid ge, MA: Har verd Unlverslry Press. that our corporeal or bestial side conne cted us to the animals, while OU I" ratonal or
Sch v..-artz, J. H . 2005. TheRed Ape. New York: Basic Books. spiritual sde connected us to God. But a hundred years Iater; to the generation after
Sbubn , N. C. Tabn , an d S. Ca rroll. 2009 . D eep hom ology allJ the origins of evo lutio nary Darwn, both our brains and our bod ies would have to conneet us to the animals,
novelry, Nature 457:818- 823: and we would have to seeourselves as conn ected to them historically and genetically.
Sim pso n, G. G. 196 1. Principies of Animal Taxonomy. New Yo rk: Columbia Uni versiry Th ere s still wiggle room , however. Since Darwinism is about descent and
Press. divergence, not just descent, we can scc our relation to the apes as one that incor-
Stan1ey, S. M . 1979. Macroevolution: Pattem and Process. San Fra ncisco : W H, Freem an. pora tes extensive dvergence. The human, after all, is thc one walking and ralkng,
I Tattersall, L, and N. Eldre dgc. 1977. Pact, theory, and fantasy in human paleon tology American at th e ver y least.
Scientist 65:204- 2 11.
On the other hand, what would it mean f we could train an ape nearly to
wa ddngton, C. 1942. Canali zation of dcvelop m ent and the nh erltan ce of acqured char acters.
Nature 150:563- 565.
walk, or nearly to talk? Might it mean that, no mattcr how different we th ink we
Wad d ington, C. H . 1957. The StrategyoJthe Genes. Lond o n: Allen an d Un win .
are. we are never beyond the control of our "Inner ape'T : Or that we are governed
mor e than we realize by "nature"?; And that even OUI" historical injustices and
mo der n inequalities are "just" irremediable expression s of a subcutaneous sim-
ian-one that wc may not like, but that we are stuck with?

121
 122 C H A PTE R 7 IS TH AT AN A PE I N YOUR GENES?
Ind ecd, it might m ean all that, and more. De cad es of scien tiflc best sellers,
from African Geness (1961 ) th rough The Naked Ape (1967), The Third Chimpan-
zee (1992) and Demonic Males (1996 ). have overemphasized the sim ilarities
between hum an and ape, to construct an apparently scientific argument for the
"nat u ral ness" of things Iike aggr ession, social hierarchies, gendcr roles, and even
war. Even admitting a broad swath of navet , it is hard to believe that the authors
are entirely innocent of the pol tical implications of th eir writings. Using "nature'
as a bludgeon against th e p oor est an d weakest elem ents ofsocicty, after all, was the
eore of th e "social Darwini st" agen da even before World War 1.
And thus we find the apc s as pawns in a larger philosoph ical contest over
human nature-is injustice really unju st, oc s it just life? In other words, should we
both er working to imp rove socie ty, or jus t leave it alo ne, warts and allj Of course,
you can probably guess how the wart s th emselves would vote - to leave it alone.
An d ifthey cou ld recruit th e primates to support th em , th eymlght make a persua-
sive case for a conservative social agenda .
Conseque ntly, our pla ce among the prim ates is invariably hig hly contcsted
terra in . Not just scie ntifica Ily and religiou sly. but poli tically and soci ally as well.
We assign to primatology the job of patrolling the boundary of what It means to be
human- cer tainly an mportant symbolic marker- and consequently, we invest a
lot of cultu ral powe r in it. As a result, it is har d even to imagine a "valu -neutral"
primatology ; virtually any pronouncement that comes out of th e field has mean-
ing tha t directl y bears on where we carne from, and by impli cation , who and what
we are.
PRIMATE CLASSIFICATION
Ultmately, d assification is a cultural aet. We rna ke jud grn cnt calls about the crite-
ria to app ly (do we use phylogeny exclus ively, or ph ylogeny and dive rgence, or
som ething elset), abo ut the rank at whi. l ~ !o acknowledge those eriteria (is a clade
of three relate d anim als a sin gle genus wuh three spec es, or a single family with
thr ee genera?), and even abo ur the num ber of gro ups to be recognized . For exam-
ple, the same assemb lage of an imals might be grouped in to fou r sma ll clus ters (say,
fou r gene ra with on e spe cies apiece) or into two large cIusters (say, two genera with
two spe cles apie ce).
Even the nat ural un its themselves, the speces, wh ich are rathe r lcss ar bitrarily
defined, are still subject to exp ansi n and contrac tio n. Th is is especia lly tr uc in the
study of paleoanthrop ology, where the data on whic h to base systematc judg-
ment s is restricted to Incomplete skeletal material. We call syst cm at c dec ston s to
keep the number of taxa small "Iump ing" (for he re we are lumping diverso and
poss ibly dffe ren t cre atures into the sam e few categori es), and we calI declsions te
cons tru ct many taxa to accommodate 3 gro up of organ isms "spltm ng" (for h e-re we
are splitt ingslm lar and pos sibly conspecific creatures into separate cetegones).
Pr imate taxonom y is par tic ulariy sensi tive to cultu ral Influ ences. Not only is
the reward system in palc oan lhrop ology stru cture d towa rd splitt ing (chapter 8),
Primate Classification 123
but even th e taxo no rny of livin g pr imates is cultu rally infl ected as well. Consider
this: Primatology textbooks publi shed in the mi d -1980s tabulated aboul 170 living
spec cs of primates. Two d ecad es Iarer, there were about tw ice tha t; and now, th ere
are over 40 0 living primate sp ecies for m ally recog nized .
Wha t is th e cause of this explosive inerease in the numbe r of primate species?
Are new species being dscoveredi Are primates undergoing exte~sive speciation ?
Actually, th e n umber of new species di scovered is quite sm all, and the amo unt
of tim e under cons ideration (abo ut 25 years) is hardly sufficie nt for speciation.
What is at play is sorne th ng quite dfferent, but n evertheless very imp ort ant.
Mo st prim ates llve in arboreal environm ents , that s, in trees. Many of them
live in countries in whch the human soclcties are eco nornically develop ing, a nd
part of tha t development invo lves building farms, fact ories , and houses- and
often at the expense offorests. Muc h of the model he re is base d on the histor y of
the Un ited Sta tes, where the eo nservation m ovement acose at the end of the ni ne -
teenth century, afte r the indigenous p eop les had bee n "pacified ," the bison h ad
been a11 but ext erm inat ed, native forests h ad bee n destroyed, and Niaga ra Palls wa s
an industrialized eyesore.
Now, ho wever, we recognize the importance of conservaton-not jus t for
such mundane thing s as acid ra in, or the ozo ne layer of thc atmosphe re, which
filters out harmful ult raviolet rays-but also for th e balance that ecosyste ms mai n-
tain, with each sp ecies filling its ow n role; and for the rr ecoverable Ioss incurred
by extin con, espeeially for an understandng of primate dive rsity and adaptation .
Given the interest in eo nse rvation b oth nationall y and int ernationally, it
sho uld not b e sur prising th at primates are often the centers of attention. Th e
mountai n gor illas stu ded by Dian Fossey in Rwan da h ave come to be kn ow n all
over the world; and the wooll y sp ider monkc ys (or m uriquis) stu died by Kare n
Strier in Brazil have shown that th ey can reb ound fro m extens ive habitat distur-
bance- alth a ugh still highly endangered. That shows th e imme d iacy of conse rva-
tion issues: There is a window of opportunity to save endangered primates, but it
is closin g.
Conser vaton is the kcy to un dersta ndi ng why there are so m any species of
pri ma tes. Since much of conservation legislation is written at th e spe cles level, it is
stro ngIy in the conserv ation ists' interest (and the prim ates' interest] lo be splitters,
and to regard local pop ulations as disti nct species. In th at way, parti cular popula-
tions of endangered species have their O W Il ch ance at surv ival, and bure aucrats
(acting on behalf of industrial p atrons) ca n't prot ect jus t ane popul ation of a spe-
cies and feel as though the species itself is prot eeted satisfactorily. Wi th so much at
risk, the nu mber of spe cies ha s gro wn extensively; and th e nu mber of form ally
designate d subs pecies h as as well.
Thus, the numbe r uf na tural evolutonar y units of p rimates is probably over-
estimat ed by th e nu rnber of formalIy design ated , named units of pr imates. That
isn't necessaril y bad, bu t is simply an acknowledgment th at th e material necds of
the pr imates are more urgent th an the abstraet n eeds of scientists- an d th at th e
apparent facts of natu re <:re facts of culture as well.
124 C HA P T ER 7 . IS -T HA T AN APE IN YOUR G EN ES?
PROBLEMS OF UNIFORMITARIANISM
We _take as a gen eral guide to research in the historlcal sciences th at th e present is
the key lo the p astoThis guideline was established by Ch arles Lyell in the nine-
teenth centu ry, and named "uni formitariani sm" in a review ofhis book, Principies
oj Geoogy. Like aH gudel ines, however, it isn't always right, an d sornctimes can be
positively mi sleading. Three cautionary exampl es may be useful.
In the 1960s, a prominent paleont ologist sought to make sense ofthe Miocene
(23.5-5.3 m illion years ago) fossil record of apes. Startin g with th e recognition
that there are three forms of African "apes" alive tod ay-hum ans, chimpanzees,
an d gocillas- he grouped the Miocen e fossils tnro th ree categories as well, which
he thought repr esen ted the ancestors of the th ree living gro ups. In th is case, how-
ever, the diversity of apes alive today was not a reliable guide to the diversity of
Miocene apes. The ape species that sur vive today are asad and path etic rellc of a
once-broad and diverse rad iation of such crcatu res. We no w recogn ize about
th irty genera of Mio cen e apes.
A second example is th e lemur s of Madagascar, which are aH fairly small crea-
tures today, ranging in size from the tiny mou se lemur, up to the size of a small dog.
about 2S lbs. And yet it wouId be misleading to think of lernurs only as small crea-
tures. Wh en hum ans first arrived on th e island of Madagascar about 1,500 years
ago -e-in historical tim es!-there were actualIylemurs weigh ing 150 lbs. Shor tly after
the arrivaI of humans, th e largest Madagascan birds and m arnrnals d ed out. Thus,
the lemurs alive tod ay are a skewed sample of the physieal diversity of this group,
skewed probabl y by hum an agency, driving th em to extinction in recent times.
As a final example, we note th at modero higher primates of the Old World are
grouped into th ree categories-quad rupedal monkeys, bra chiating apes, and
walking humans . Each 'of th ese categorles represent s a bread and successful radia -
tion of species, and ha s several other ana tom ical and beh avioral correlates. The
monkeys, for example, ten d to have crests connectn g the cusps on the ir molar
teet h, the better to shear th eir plant food with; apes tend to have long arms; and
humans to walk erect. Sin ce these are th e "packages" that our modero primates fall
into, It is only natural, whe n we enco unter a fossl pr im ate, to seek to assign it to
one of thos e thr ee categories. Yet exti nct primates are not n ecessar ily constraned
by the same pigeonholes int o which we can sor t their su rviving cousins. In Oreo-
pithecus, an Scm lllion -yea r-old primate from Italy, we find teeth sim ilar to thos c of
living monkeys, long arm s similar to those of living " pes, and adaptations of the
feet sim ilar to living peo pIe. Wh ich of the se fcatures is ll w "real" un e, which allows
us to fin d the prop er pigeonhole for Orenpithecus? Curr ent opini n sees Oreo-
pithecus as an odd member of th e adaptvc radia tion of apc s, converging dietarily
an d dcntally with mo nkeys, and conv erging as well on the upri ght posture of
human s-c-but as ample testi mony to the confusion incur rcd by trying to asstgn
exti nct primates ro the established categor ies of living prim ates.
. Thus, while the presen t may be the best and mo st reliable guide we have for
understanding th e past, th e past must also be understood on its own ter ms.
The Mammals 125
GEN ETI C AND ANATOMICAL DATA
Clesscally; th e relationships amon g groups of animals were, and are, established by
a dctailed comparison of their bo dies, especially their rnusculo-skeletal systems (as
that is th e only system accessible in the case of extinct spectes). Using the phyloge-
netic metho d discussed in chapt er 6, and formalized explicitly in the 1970s, we have
been able to ascertai n the relationships ofthe major group s ofprimat es with a con -
siderable degree of resolution. In sorn e cases, however, anatomical data may be
ambiguous. Snce the 19605, however; th ese data have been increasingly augme nted
with molecular genetic data. principally pro tein and DNA stru eture, which provide
an independcnt suitc of traits to anaIyze phylogenetically. The advantages of using
molecular data to analyze phylogenetic relationship s are th at they are not as sensitive
to adaptive convergence (superficial resembl ance duc lo common circumstances) as
anatom cal characters are; they can be readil y treated quanti tatively; and thcy pro -
vide m any characters for anaIysis. The principal disadvantages are that there are few
character states (you can only be A, T, e, or G in DNA, for example), whieh leads to
a great deal of random parallel mut ation; there m ay be multiple mutations at th e
same slte, so that one observable nucleot ide difference between two speclcs may be
the result of mor e than one evolutionary change, wh ich can not be seen; and except
for fortuitous preservati on of recent materials, the fossil record is not amenable to
genetic study-and yet it comprises most of the species that have ever lived.
Usual1y the relatlon ships oflivin g creatu res as deduced from anatomical stud-
ies mat ch ver y well with the relationships as deduced from biomolecular studies.
Wh en th ey don't, however; each set of dat a has to be carefully re-examined to see
what assu mptions m ay be incorrect an d what method s are more reliable in the
particular case. Closely related gro ups may often yield ambi guous phyIogenetic
results from wha tever data are being ana lyzed , which is an indication that per hap s
the m odel we are im posing on th e evolutionary h stor y ofthe species is a bit too
simple. Thus, th e relatio nships am ong the woolly monkey (Lagothrix) , the spider
mon key (A teles), and th e woo lly spider mo nkey (Bra chyteles) do not seem to be
readily resolvable into two closest relatives and an ou tgro up. Perh aps, th en , it was
the result of a th ree-way split, the n early sim ulta neous dvergence of th ree gen e
pools from onc anoth er- the kind of situa tion that may not repr esent the simplest
case, but is n oi tern bly improbable, either.
Since we Iocus on derived features to estab lish patteros of descent, we sorne -
times end up focusing on things that ma y seem min uscule or arcane. Here we need
to remember that for OUT purposes, th ese de rived featu res are simply ma rkers of
ielati onshi p; on ly in sorne cases do they reflect fund amental adapt ive changes.
THE MAMMALS
The world of 100,000,000 years ago was quite a bit different. As you em erged from
-~~ur time ma chin e lo examine the wildll fe, you m ight notice the complete lack of
{~iliar- Iooki~g trees (angiosperms), bu t for ests composed of other kinds oC
126 CH APTE R 7 . 15 THAT AN AP E IN YOUR GE NE S?
plants-ferns and palrns. You migh t find the air a bit invigorating , as the oxygen
content of th e atmosphere wouId be perhaps 40% h gber than what you evolved to
expe ct. The large lan d animals could be broadly divided into two classes-those
th at ate pIants and those that ate the an imals eating plants-rather like the wilde -
beest and zebras of the African plains on the one h and, and the lion s and hyenas
tra cking them on the othe r.
But of cou rse, the two c1asses of animals you'd be sceing would be dinosaurs.
Scurrying un derfcot, h owever, would be a strange group of d fferent kinds of
creatures, covered neith er with scales, nor with feathe rs, bu t with ha ir. lf you fou nd
a nest of them, you wouId see that their young were b orn lve, an d suckled from
glands on their mother's abdo me n, rather tha n being hatched from eggs. You
might also n otice aspect s of th eir teeth and bone s: but altogether, th ey would not
seem likc a particularly imp ressive group of animals, compared with th e diverse
and large dinosaurs atop the proverbial food chain.
About 65 mi llion year s ago, perhaps stimulated by a meteor impact, an eco-
logical catastrophe dramatica lly altered the shape of Iife on earth. The large-
bod ied d inosaurs die d out, along with m any ot her grou ps of plant s an d an imals.
Sorne mammals managed to su rvve, however, and foun d a world liberated of
the great repti lia n competitors and predators. Withi n abo ut 10 m illion years,
th ey h ad expanded and d verslfled into mo st of the general kinds of m ammals
we are familiar with today, one of which is our group, the Order Primates. How-
ever, this divers ification was so explosive that tracing back th e relation ships of
particular m~mm alian orders is very diffic ult : it is con sequently often called a
"star ph ylogeny" with ma ny differenl modern lin eages developing at roughly the
same time.
Altho ugh we tend to focus on lactation as "th e" key ma mmalian trait, in Iact,
the mamma1s share severa1 interesting features of the skeletal and rep roductve
system. Perhaps th e most sign ificant of these is our skin, wh ich has hai r and sweat
gland s. An other is th e differentiation of our tee th into grou ps with diverse [un e-
tions: incisors for bitng. can ines for slashing, premolars for chew ng, and molar s
(with more than one root) for grin ding. Yet another is the developm ent of the
embryo in side its mot her, rath er than in an egg, en cased by a shell. To a paleen -
tologist , however, the mo st significant mammalian feature is the constru cti on of
our jawbo ne, which s made up of sever al elernen ts in oth er vertebrates, but of only
a single elernent in mam mals. Th e other bones have become the ham mer, anvil,
and stirr u p of our midd le car- an d th e redu ction and migration of these bones
ca n be tracked in the skulls of the "mamm al-like reptiles:' whose skeleto ns link us
lo the ot h er vertebrales of th e [urassic era .
This migh t raise a qucstion about ou r official designa tion as "mammals"
Gven th at th e term denotes a natural group distinguished on the basis of several
key adaptve featu res, why do we privilege the breast, someth ing functiona l in only
. half of the specles, and rare ly even in the m ? Why wou ld Natonal Geograp hie fea-
ture a m other-lnfanr dyad on the cover of a special issue on the marnm als in April
2003 rather than their hair, or skin, or teeth, or ears? Is there sorne reason why we
Our Place in Primate Systematics 127
should consider ours elves fundamentally specialized breast-feeder s, as opposed to
fundamentall y spe cialized ch ewers, or hearers, or sweaters?
There is a reason, and it he1ps us to see the interaction of scientific facts and
social history. We "became" mammals in th e canonical tenth edit on ofLinnaeus'
5ystem of Na ture (1758); prior lo thal lime, he ha d called the group "Quadrupedi a"
and noted th at it was characterized by a "hairy body, four lmbs, and fema les give
birth to live young and lactate,"For examp le, in his 1746 descrfption of th e animaIs
of Sweden, Linn aeu s groups them into Qu adrupedia (mam mals), Aves (birds),
Amphibia (inc1uding reptiles), Pisces (fish), Insecta, and Vermes (wor ms). In the
17505, however, Linnaeus became involved in a social controversy: wom en in
urban Europ e were increasingly sending the ir newborns to the country to be wet-
nursed . This permitted the new moth ers greate r freedom to work in an industrial-
izing society, altho ugh it exposed the baby to high er health rtsks. Linnae us was
am ong th ose who did not like this change in maternal behavio r; and in fact, he
wrote a pamphlet con dcmning the practice. The tenth edition of Systema Na tu rae,
with its change from "Quadruped a" to "Mamm alia," was the very next thing he
wrote.
Linn aeus was encoding a social me ssage in his bo logcal classfcatlon . He
was saying, "It is the natural role of wom an to nourish her child" By emphasizing
dis pro portionately th e basic role of th e "mammal" as maternal caretaker, he simu l-
taneou sly discredite d wet-nursing as un natural and led many generations of bol-
ogy students to accept lactation as the key feature of the group at the expense of all
the other adapt ve features the group possesses.
On ce again , apparently natural facts are also cultural facts.
OUR PL ACE IN PRIMAT E SYSTEMATICS
Am ong the mammals, primates are know n principalIy for two suites of features-c-
their h ands and their eyes. Those adaptations app ear to b e relate d to arboreal Iife,
to catch ing nsect s, and to eating fruit in the branches of Ilowerlng tr ees. Whil e we
rarely eat insects or climb trees to eat fruit , we can neverthe less iden tify th ese
adaptatons in the human body.
Dividing th e livin g primates into two grou ps is problematic because of the
amb iguous po sition of the tarsier- sh aring primi tive traits with the lemurs an d
lortses (snch as groomi ngcl aws on the toe), derived traits with an thropoids (such
as a whis kerless d ry no se, single upper Ip, uterine structure, enclose d eye socket,
and thc inability to synthesize vitam in e), and po ssessing th eir own un ique tra its
(such as elongated anklc bones and very large eyes). A traditional c1assification
sorts thc tarsier along with the lemurs, lor ses. and galago s (Prosirnii), as opposed
to monkeys and apes (Anth ropoidea). Thi s has the advantage of acknowledging
the adaptive succc ss of a diurnal, social arboreal qu adruped -the earliest mon-
keys. (Se. Figure 7.1.)
An alternative, cladistic c1assification takes th e phylogene tic pos ition of the
tarsier as the basis of reclassifying th e prim ates by rem oving the tar siers from the
12 8 C HAP TE R 7 I S T H AT AN A P E IN YO UR GE NE S?
Prosim Anthropoidea Strepsrhtn Haplorhini
G
.lVP, G
,---A----, ,---"---; ,---"---; ,--"-----,
'lv l'
Lemurs, Monkeys, Lemurs, Monkeys,
Lorises, Apes, Lcrises, Apes,
Figure 7.1. A traditionalclassification reco qnt zes the paraphyletie
proslmtans: a cladlstlc classiflcation would define them out of exrstence.
pro simians an d clustering them nstead with the anthropo ids. The resultant
groups would be Strepsirhini (1emurs, lorises, and galagos) and Haplorhini (tarsi-
ers, m onkeys, apes, and peo ple).
Th is is not widely adopte d for much th e same reason th at biologists have not
ent hus iastically tossed out "Repula" The adaptive dive rgenc e of th e contrasting
group- in th is case Anthropoidea, in th at case, Aves- is considercd more impor-
tant th an phylogen etic consistency. In othe r words, phylogeny is good, but obsess-
ing about it is probably unh ealthy.
Th e Eoeene (ca. 45 MYA) is the epoeh in which the flrst familiar-Iooking
prim ates evolved-with the suite of dassic specializations found in living pri-
mates. Two well-kn own families, the Adapidae and Omomyidae, nevertheless also
have un certain relationships to modern primate fam ilies-showing nicely the lack
of fit between "flnding many fossils" and "understandng wh ere th ey go,"as well as
the prominence of"transitional form s"-for wha t is a tra nsitiona! for m, lf not an
animal that is und assifiable for its mixt u re of features? A fossil nicknam ed "Ida"
enj oyed sorne recent transient fame as an anth ropo id anc estor, but othcr features
appear Inst ead to link it to the lernur s and lori scs.
We group the anthro poids into two infraorde rs: Platyrrh ini uf Central and
South Am rica, an d Catarrhni of Europe, Asia. and Africa. An important taxo-
nomic consequen ce of thi s sepa ration between platyr rhi nes and catarrhi nes is thar
the catego ry "monkey" Is highly artificial, for it unites distantly related creatures-r-
"monkeys" of th e New Warl d, and "mo nkcys" of the Old world. Actually the mon -
keys of thc Old World are more dosely related to apes and humans (by virtue of
having the key catarrh ne fcatures) than they are to th e mo nkeys of the New World.
The reason th c two groups of "monkeys" resemble one ano ther is th at these pri-
mate s share basic skeletal adaptations for arboreal quad rupedaIism : walking and
running on , di nging to, and leaping from, br an ches in trees.
T HE LIVING A PES
The natural histor y of ape s has pro ven a fcr ttle grou nd for mytho logizing-
In inventi ng the gen re of th e crim c story in 184 1, " dgar Al1an Poe had an
orangutan cornm it "The Mur ders in th e Rue Morgue!' Fra nz Kafka used the
The Living Apes 129
ape -trans for med into -huma n as a metaphor for th e assimilated [ew in early
twen tieth-century Europe. The mo dern hum orist Jame s Gorman ironicaUy lik-
ens the pe rsonali ties of [an e Goodall's Gomb e chimpan zees to those of part icu -
lar te1evangclists.
The scentifc prcsent ation of the ape s was satirzed as early as 1931 by th e
Ne w Yorker writer Will Cuppy. Of our best-known nonhuman prim ate, Cuppy
wrote,
The Baboon is cntirely uncalled foroSorne people like baboons but somcthing is
wrong with such people. Baboons lose thcr tempers. There are more baboons
than you might thlnk The baboon is not an Anthropod Ape. He has a tail,
though not a good ene, and so he is a Lower Apc. In faet he is moreof a Monkcy.
The Araban Baboon as Ihe name Implics s found in Abyssinia. Baboons have
hghlycolored schlalcallosities. Scientists tell us that a11 animals who sit down a
great dcal have isehial callosties. That Is a lie. The Mandrill is the worst espc.
cially when going South. Baboons bark. lt seems as though there would be no
female Baboons but there are. The family lfe of the Baboon is known as hell on
eerth. . . - Never call anyone a baboon unless you are sute of your facts. Baboons
havc fIat feet.
After reading such inspired no nsense, it is hard to take any pedagogical ds-
cussion of the prima tes seriously. Never the less, to a great extent, ou r place in
nature is predicated up on how we understand ou r place in the hominoid rad iation
of th e Miocene. We begin with th e gbbon s, of whom Cuppy wrote, "Those th in
long-wasted types with 00 head to speak of are general1y Gibbons.. .. The Hoolock
of Upp er Assam can not swim. Gibbon s are noted for th e n umber and var iety
of th ings they cannot do. It Is believed that the Gibbon could be tau ght to swat
flies. . . . Gibbon authorities do not kno w whethe r the Gibbon ls int erested in sexo
But you know and 1 know"
Living only in Southeast Asia and sorne of the neighboring island s, the gib-
bons are known colloqu ially as "Iesser apes" for th eir sm all body size, weighing
generally less than 20 lbs. Although the mo st dist antly related m embers of the
Hominoidea to us, they are also cu rious amo ng th e Catarr hini gen era lIy for th eir
rnon ogamous, nuclear-famly-orented social stru ctu re. They are also very speci-
ose as apes go, with at least 9 species gene rally recognzed, differing pr incipalIy in
- size, coloratlon, an d quite strikingly in ch romoson. c structure. y..,'e gro up th em all
nto a single genu s, Hy lobates, of which the siamang (H. sy ndactyius) s th e largest,
with the mc st distinc tlve anatomical features, and yet can still hybridize with other
gibbon species (a1Jhough the hybrids are pr obably sterile, lke mules).
A gibbo n was first described scientifica l y in 1766 by the French naturalist
Buffon , who was impressed by its enormo usIy long arms, which appear to able to
touch the groun d even when the anim al stand s upright. Wh en on th e grou nd, it
assume s a bipedal stance, balancing with ar ms strctched out to the side, much Iike
a trapeze artist.
Becau.se gibbo ns live high in the treetop s. th ey h<1 ve not been as extensively
studied as the m ore terr estrial great apes . Howevcr, ~ hey are noteworthy for their
 130 C HAPTER 7 IS T HA T AN APE I N YO U R GENES?
lack of sexua l d m orp h sm , bo th in bod y size and canine tee th. This s presumably
a result of red uced competition for m ates brought on by the monogam ou s social
struc ture; catarrh in e spe cies in which mal es and females are not pai r bond ed , but
ma te mo re pro mscuously, tend to have greater amounts of sexual dimorph ism as
a result of m ales having to compete for reproductive access to females.
And yet those monogamo us gibbons are k.nowo to che at on th eir par tn ers, as
recent DNA studies have shown.
Like many arboreal primat es, the gibbons are highly territorial an d signal
th eir spat al position s in relation to one anot her with a ser ies ofloud calls. lo fact,
th e differen t spec ies rarely overlap in geographic di stribution . They are unique,
however, in the way they move th rough the trees, swinging acrobatically with their
lon g, strong arrns, and hook-like hands. It is und ear whether they are th e most
basic brachiators (from which th e larger apes dive rged ), or th e mo st highly derived
an d specialized brachiators, but on e thi ng is certain-they do it very well.
T here is bu t a single species of orangutans, d ivided into two subspecies: Pongo
pygmaeus pygmaeus on Born eo and Pongo pygmaeus abelii on Sumatra. They got
there during tim es ofl owered sea levels, and th e rem ains of orangutans are known
on th e Asian mainland as weU as 00 othe r slands. O rangutans are. curious ly,
among th e least social of primates, generaUytraveling alone and ente ring into few
obvious long-ter m social relation sh ips. The ir bodies are covered with long reddis h
hair, and th eir c1ose-set eyes give them an appearance m ore human -like than the
othe r apes, whic h is why the local p eople called thern "people oft he woo dsv-c-the
loas e translation of "orangutn," Although they do co me down to the gro und
sometim es, most of the r lives are spent in the trees. whe re th ey move slowly and
delfbe rately, a locomot ion known as "clambering." On th e gro und, th eir clamber-
ing movement s tr anslate into a slow four- limbed gait in which th ey bear their
weigh t p ar tially on their clenched fsts,
O rangutans are very highly sexu ally drno rp hic, with males developing large
pa ds on the sides of their face, in addition to the comm on cata rrhine patterns of
body size and cani n e size dmor ph ism . Since we tend to fin d high Ievcls of sexual
d imorphism in more terr estri al spec ies, an d in more h igh ly social spec ics, the
orangutan remain s a bit of an eni gm a.
Since ther discover y in th e m id-n ineteen th centur y, th e gor llas have been
perhaps th e mo st highly myt hoJogized living creat u res. Confined now to sl~all
patches of forest in cent ral and western Africa , wh ile all being subs umed within a
sing le spec ies, Gorto gorilla, we recogn ize three geog rap hic subspccies: easter n
lowland (G. g. gOTilIa), western lowlan d (G. g. graueri) , and mountain (G. g.
beringei) . Parad oxlcally, th e mount ain gorilla is the rare st , but th e most famili~r,
because of the pion eering resea rches of D ian Fossey at the site of Karsoke m
Rwanda, the subject of th e popular movie GaTillas in the M ist.
The charismatic paleo ntologist Lou is Leakey sponsored the in itial researches
. of Dian Fossey on m ountain gorillas, as weU as Iane Goodall on chimpanzees ,~n.d
Birute Galdikas on or angutans. Th ose th ree wom en carn e to be known as the m-
m ates"-each doing field rese arch 0 0 one of the th ree genera of th c great apes.
The Living Apes ]31
Fossey, however, had a tem pera ment less well disposed to the economic, social,
an d po litical r igor s of her field work. Livin g amo ng despera tely poo r peop le, she
seeme d to sympath ize mo re with th e pligh t ofthe gorillas, which were all too com -
m only the victims oE poach lng, a tragic part ofthe local eco nomy. Fossey embr aced
the rumor th at she was a wtch, in order to protect the gor illas from poac h ng, b ut
witchcraft is taken very seriously in mu ch of Africa ; and she met a gruesome en d
one night in her camp at Karisoke . T he simplistic moral of th e movie "Gorillas in
the Mist' -along the lines of.tpeope bad, gorilla goo d"- ignores the network of
poli tical and economicforces tha t placed the gorillas in such jeopardy at the hands
of the local peopIe. Th s was certainly reinforced by the civil war in Rwanda in the
19905, which left hundreds of thousands of people dead , and sorne m ountain
gorilla s as well.
Of th e great apes, the gorilla is the c nly one known to be very strictly vegetar-
ian in the wild . Living in smaJl groups with a single ad ult male, several adult
femalc s, and subadults, gorillas are the largest living pr im ates, and also highly
sexu ally dimorphic, with ma les weighing up to 600 pounds. Younger pcripheral
males will occasio oally try to take a fema le away from an adu lt "silverback" ma le,
resulting in mo st of the violence that Is recor ded in gor illa interaction s.
Wh en they descend to the groun d, gorillas (an d chimpanzees) move about in
an od d way. The long arms and stro ng flexor m usdcs of the fingers th at serve bra-
chiators so well in the trees are employed as the ape bears its weight on th e knuc k-
les of its hand s. T his "knuckle-walking" is a very unique way of getting aro und ,
and it Is not kn own whether it represent s a derivcd tr ait sha red by th e African
apes, an in dependent acquisition in the taxa that do it, or a primitive an cestral
con ditio n of human bipedalism .
Gorillas are also not kno wn to use tools or to have local beh avioral tra ditions,
as chimpanzees and or anguta ns app ear tooThis d oes not mean they ail beh ave the
samc way, of course-Iowland gorill as, for exam ple, are now kn ow n to sp cnd Iar
_more time in the trees than mo unta in gorill as.
More is kno wn abou t chi mpanzees (Pan troglodytes) th an abo ut the other liv-
ing apcs, pri ncipally because they are more common and have been thc subjcct of
a wcll-kn own contn uous study now spann ing over five deca des , by Iane Go odall
and h er colleagues, at the site of Gombe in Tanzania.
Iane Gooda ll's first boo k, In the Shadow 01 Ma n (1971), was based on a decade
of fieldwork and gave an idyllic view of the Gombe ch impanzees, Each had a nam e
and a personality. Desp te th e occasional jockeying for dominance, the y lived gen -
erally peaceful lves, and mostly spent thei r time sitt ing aro und and eating . Good-
al! also observed them to select a twig, strip the leaves off It, wet It, poke it into a
term ite hole, and retrieve and eat the term ites th at c1uog lo the twig. Thi s was
'celebrated as the firsl discover y of too l manufacture and use in ano the r primate
specles (although ot her d ever spcc cs had long been k.nown to modify elem ent s of
-thcir environment to assist them in ob ta ining food).
But darker times Iaya head for the Gom be chimpan zees. Two females, Passion
and Porn, wen t 00 a brief, violent in fanticidal spree. Later; the communit y
132 C HAPTER 7 15 T HAT A N APE IN YO UR GENES?
fissione d, and over the eourse of a few years, the males of the Kasakela group
opp ortu nisticalIy killed the males of th e Kahama group, one by one, as any of th em
ventured to o clase to Kasakela tur f. Sueh nastiness les at the eore of the "Demon c
Males" theory, based on th e study of the Gomb e chimpan zees. whether thi s rep-
resentation of chimpa nzees is more accurate, or more real, th an the earlier one is
curre ntly unknown.
One thing is clcar: it is certainly a m istake to essentialize chimpanzee behav-
ior, and to imagine that there is a single narrow "natural" chimpanzee way of lv-
ng, which is independent of the histor y, social rnilieu, and environment of any
specc popul ation of chm panzecs . We now kn ow, for exam ple, from long-term
stud ies at other sltes, that chimpa nzees greet one anothe r differentl y, have d iffer-
ent food preferences, hunt dfferently, .a nd use di fferent kind s of too ls at different
sites. By implication, the same is probably true of the other, more poorIy known,
ape species.
Perh aps the most intere sting feature of chimpanzees is their huntin g. Although
prima rily vegetarian, chi mpa nzees wiIl oppor tunistically eat srnall vertebrates,
an d one of thei r favorites is the red coIobu s monkey. The degree of coordination
in th e chase is unclear; and may va ry hetween dfferent sites, but severa l indi vid-
uals, mostly males, wiIl wait for a young monkey to stray far enough away from an
ad ult and then chase it th rou gh th e trees with th e ruthless pursuit of an intclligent
pred ator. Ir a monk ey is caught, it is da shed against a tr ee branc h or leth ally bitten,
an d its carcass is begged for and divided among the memb ers ofthe hu nting party,
and th e meat is apparently savored by a11 participant s.
Chimpanzees are also unique among the apes for thei r prominent displ ays of
fem ale fertility, rnarked by the visually striking pink swelling of the gen italia. This
is also kno wn among sorne cercopithe cin e m onkeys, such as baboon s. Othe r apes
have more subtle behavoral and olfactory changes durin g th e period of female
fertil ity, which lcads her to solicit and accept sexual over turcs-a penod known as
estru s.
Bonobos are generally placed in their own species. ?an paniscus, and are
clearly very similar to chimpanzees and differ from th em in subtle physical ways,
for example, bonobos having long black hair on th eir head, parted in the center:
and their vocalizations are like squeaks. Behaviorally, however, the two species of
Pan are different in fascinating mann ers. Unlike cornmon chimpanzees, the bono-
bos form female coalitions, which prevent individual females from th e physical
intimid ation that larger male ch impanzees often inflict on smaller female chm-..
panzees . Th cse female bonobo coalition s are reinforced by non-repr oductve
sexual act ivity between fema les. They also appear to have more human -lke
lim b pro portion s, which gives them better balance when they assum e a bpedal
postu re-although like ch imps and gorillas, the ir gail on the ground is usua Uy
. kn uckle-walking. . .
Th ese apparent similarities to hu mans, however, are bala nced by dissimilan -
tes: bonobos use tools far less than comm on chlmp anz.v s, nor do they hunt
mu ch o PhylogeneticalIy, boncbos and chimpanzee s are each other's closest
The Trichotomy 133
relatives, so th e lesson here is fundarnen tally about the great breadth of behavior
obse rvable in th e genus Pan.
THE T RICHOTOMY
In th e 19605, the flrst applications of mo lecular genetic techniques to th e relatio ns
of th e Homincid ea showed that humans feH in with a cluster of the African ape
gene ra, leaving the orangutan as a mo re distant relatve, Indeed, amo ng humans,
chimpa nzces, and garillas, th e genetc rclation s are so close th at th ey appea r to be
nearly indistinguishable (for example, the hemoglobin s of human and chimpanzee
are ident tcal), and the phylogeny int ractable-they appea red to have split th ree
ways simultaneously 4-8 m ilJion years ago, an "unresolvable trichotomy."
In th e 19805, th ese results were augmen ted by the ap plication of other gen etic
data, especially the actual DNA sequences themselves. Sorne, suc h as mtochon-
drial DNA scquenccs. suggested that humans and chimpanzees shared an espe-
cially intim ate chunk of biological history- th ey might actua lly be each oth cr 's
sa le closest relatives. This would leave out the gorilla, which nevertheless seems
to have m uch in common with chimpanzees, such as knuc k1e-walking an d
aspeets of ch romosome stru cture- whieh would now be difficult to interpreto
Thu s, far from clar ifying th e picture, th e new dat a suggest, rather; that our strietly
bifurcating mo de ls mar be too simple to represent the actu al bio -histor y of the
hominoids.
A recent study of 60 DNA sequences from humans, ch irnpanze es, gorillas,
and an outgro up found that th e most co mm on result (26) was th e inab ility of a
partic ula r DNA seq ucnce to resolve the trich oto my, an d of the rern aining
sequenccs, 22 supp orted an association of hu ma n-chimpa nzee (with the gorilla
as outlter): 5 supported chmpanzee-gon lla (with h uman as outli er): and 7 sup-
ported hu man -gorilla (with chi mpan zee as outlier). Wh ile the mo st conse rva-
tive conclusion might seem to be that it realIy represents a th ree-way split (that
is, the 26 DNA sequences are "nght," and the rem ain ing 34 gtve interna lly co n-
tradictor y rcsults owi ng to the complexity of th e actual bio -h istor y), the authors
promoted a differ ent interpretation- th at thc 22 DNA sequences support ing
an especially inti ma te relationship bet wcen human an d chmpanzee, to the
exclusi n of the gorilla, were "right," and th e remaining 38 were simply giving
false phylogenetic informa tion. This is a problematic inter pretatio n because it is
neither the most conse rvative interpretat ion of the dat a (whieh is usually favore d
in science) and beca use it takes an un comprom isin g att itude to th e copious d is-
corda nt d ata, wh ich actually leaves it with mo re problems than it solves. (See
Figure 7.2.) .
While it is clear th at the pluraiity of genetic data suppor t th e associat ion
of ch impan zee and human ovcr any of the othe r pairwise sche m es, it is also
clear that any striet pairwise sche m e does not flow from the data partic ularly
wcll. Nearly every gcnetie study that shows the chimpanzee to be "closer" to
. th e h uman than to th e gorilla also shows th e statistical error bar to be bro ade r
 134 C HA PTER 7 15 T HAT AN A PE I N YOU R GE N ES?
The phylogeny Not th e ph ylogen y
.,,' , ..: ~~
Figure 7.2. The spllt of human, chimp, and qorlllain th e lat e Miocene was
more interes ting and compcated th an twc success lve bifurcatlons.
than the little bit of biological ancestor osten sibly separating the gortllas
lineage.
What seems to have happe ned about 6- 7 million years ago is somethiog both
micro- and macroevolution ary, leaving a trail of comp lexly lioked populations. In
this way, the genetic and anatomical data appearing to associatc chimpa nzees and
gorillas might not be wrong, but merely evidence of slightly more complex eco-
logical events than just successive divergcnces.
Consider an ancient species of ape, widely distributed across equatorial Africa
about 7 million years ago, and physical1y similar to chimpanzees . In a small part of its
central-western ran ge. a founding population begins to evolve into gorillas. Roughly
simu ltaoeously, 00 the eastern of its range, a larger founding population begins to
evolve into human s. The broad mddle evolves into chimpan zees. (See Figure 7.3.)
What pattern s would we expect to see when we compared them millions of
years later? Probably most data would fail to detect two cIosest relatives (for there
aren't two closest relatives): but sorne data would link chimpanzee and gorilla (for
these shared a un iq ue biological history geographi caUy removed from human
ancestors), More data would link chimpanzee and human (for these shared a
unique biological history geographically removed from gorillas, and over a broader
arca), and rather limited data would link humans and gorillas (for thesc share no
biological histor y with each other distinct from chimpanzees).
Thi s model fits the general pattero of data mor e closely than the simply bfur-
cating mo del, and is a variant of the "East Side Stor y" scenario proposed by the
French peleontologist Yves Coppens.
Th cre are attractions of the specific human- chimpanzee model , however. For
exam ple, t might considerably simplify the interpretation of many traits in which
chimpa nzees and gorillas differ; per mitting us to regard the chimpanzee as in
- effect a living hum an ancestor-our sale closest relative. In th s way, their multi-
male social grou p and frontier male violence rnight be specific antecedents of
human behavior. Considering chimpanzecs and gorillas to be equaliy c1nsely
r elated to us wouId suggest instead that neither of these forms can be rclably
inferred as ancestral lo us.
Another cru cial feature affected by the phylogenetic inter pretation is thc evolu-
tion of human bipedalism. If it really were a three-way split, then knu ckle-walking
Cladism, Reductionism, and the Rise ofthe Hominin s 135
....
. .
......
Proto -Pan
,---..;;.r.""
(J
Figure 7.3. The nearly conte mporaneous se paration of go rilla and human
ancestors frem a found ing populatfon of chimp ancest ors would accoun t
well for the bio logical pat terns we find.
might be a part of the bnef.local history shared by chimpanzees and gorillas.
Human bipedalism, then, would not have evolved from knuckle-waIking, but
from a more general form of locomotion, from which both knuckle-walking and
bipeda lism are separately derived. If it really were resolved as chimp-human, on
the oth er hand, then kouckle-walkng must either be an ind ependent acquisition
in the chimpanzee and gorilla, or a primitive character of the human-chimp-
gortlla dade. The latter Interpretation would make it likely that bipedalism evolved
from knuckle-walki ng.
Since the interpretation of the dire ct antecedent state ofhuman bipedalism is
cont ingent on the phylogeny, and the phylogeny is contested, it is difficult to say
much with confidence ebout the specific origins of human bipedalism.
CLADISM, RED UCTlN ISM, AN D T H E RI SE
OF T HE HOMIN INS
In 1962, stru ck by the genetic similarity of humans and Africa n apes, biochem ist
Moni s Goodman began to suggest rcforming the c1assification of th e apes. His
first argument was that the genetic similarit y demand ed that huma ns not be
separate d from apes at a taxono mic level as high as the Family, but al a lower
ene. Bis second argument was that since chimps and gor illas are mo re closely
related to humans than to orangutans, we sho uld not dassify chimps, gonl las,
and orangutans together (as great apes, or Family Po ngidae), bu t rather, we
should classify chmps, gurillas, and hum an s together-to reflect the phylogenetic
relationships. Good man was an early advocate of a cladi stic classification.
 136 CHA PT ER 7 IS TH AT AN AP E I N YO UR GE NE S? Clad sm, Reductonism, and the Rise of the Hominins 137

Neithe r suggest ion was accepted well by the leading biologists of the agc. Table 7.1. Alte rna tive dassiflcatlons.
Th e grea t mam malogist George Gaylord Simpso n flat1y rejected Goodmans
The tr aditional c1assification
suggestion on the gro unds th at Horno is both anatomicaHy and adaptively the
most distinctive of all hom inoids" an d "[cjlassification canno t be ba sed on recency
Superfam iJy Hc mncrd ea
of com mon ancestry alone" Inde ed, the biologist Iulian Huxley suggested around Fam ily Hylobatidae
the same time th at human s be separated from other mu lticelluIar !ife at th e sub- Genus Hylobates
kingdo m level, as Psycho zoa-mentallife. Famil y Pong idae
Th e issue was ho w th e complex information about evolutionary hi stor y is to GenusPongo
be em ployed . Anat om ically and ecologica lly, human s are qu ite di ffercnt from Genu sGoriffo
ape s. Th ere s, obvou sly, a Iot of apeness recove rable in th e hum an bo dy Ge nu sPon
and beh avior, but cer tai n ly even the ~ o st Incompetent o bserver co uld hardly Fam il y Homtndee (~homi n id s1
m iss the fact that in a gro up of apes in th eir representative habitats, our spe cies Genu sHomo
is th e on ly one walk.ing, talking, sweating, shavng, weeping, cooklng, prayng,
bu ild ing, marrying, barter ng, bath ng, coveri ng th emsclves, read lng, driving, The c1adisti clgen et ic c1as sificat ion
seaso n ing th eir food , d ri nking things oth er than water and inh aling th ings
ot h er th an air, using m aterial culture (stripped twigs no twithstand ing ), and Supe rfamily Homlnoidea
nh er tng . Fam ily Hyloba t idae
The question s, VVhy should a scientific classlficatio n choose to ignore that? Ge nus Hyloba tes
What s more scientific abo ut privileging the temp oral divergence of the ora ngu- Fam ily Hominid ae

tan over th e an atom ical, ecologcal. and behavioral d vergen ce of the human ? 1like Subfamily Ponginae

orangutan s as mu eh as the next fellow, but the ir sepa ration from humans, chimps, Genus Pongo

and gorill as is -slmply not as biologically sgn fcant as th e separation of humans,
who se unique b ehavior an d eeology has dr iven the oth er apes to the brink of
extinction !
What is left un art icu lated in aH th is is the assumption that som eho w geneti-
eally determined relation sh ips are th e "realest" and that th e "bcst" representations
of reality should reflect those relationsh ips. But sez who t: Thc genetlcists Why
sho uld geneties be th e pri m ary criterion for a scientific c1assificatio n ? After all, f
you ean't tell a h um an fro m a chimp by looking at their genes , all you rcally have
lo do is just Iook at som eth ing eIse!
It is one thing to ackn owledge the genet c sim ilarity and phylogenetic prox-
imi ty of human s. ch rnps, and gorilla s to one anoth er. But it is ano the r thing
en tirely to say th at th at infor mation is more imp ortan l lo exp ress in a c1assification
th an the divergenee of hum ans.
Divergence, after all. " what Darwin wrote The Origin ofSpecies about. Evo-
lution is the pro ductio n o difference. To de ny the sign ifieancc of the differences
evolution has produ ced is, well. weird.
!.
,.
~
UnfortunateJy, how ever, the cladistic classification - prioritizing phylogeny
over divergen ce-has also become widely adopted in recent years. Th at is why
text books no w say "homin ins," while pro fessor s say "h om in ids" to refer lo the
same group of species.
The tradirional classifi cation, usin g the paraphylctic fam ily Pon gld ae, sepa-
rates living hum ans (and th eir close extinc t relatives) as th e fam ily Hom n idae.
or colloquially as "ho min ids," The c1adisticlgenetic classification , which ado pts
Subfamily Hom ininae
Trib e Gorillini
Genu s Gorifla
Tribe Panini
Genu s Pan
Tribe Homin in i ( "h o m i n j n s ~)
Genus Horno
Mon is Good mans suggeston, sinks th e family Pongidae , and inst ead puts all
th e extant large- bodied apes in th e fam ily Hominidae, and separates the orang -
utan fro m hum an -eh imp- gorilla at th e subfa mily leve!. Th e sep aration of
humans an d their fossil relatives from the chrnps an d go rillas is now redueed to
an cven lowcr level, the Tribe Hom inin i, or coHoquia lly as "hu m in in s," (See
Table 7.1.)
Using the "homn tn" system pres uma bly m eans that you agree with its pri n-
ciples: th at a sclentific classflcaton sho uld be construe ted on deseent alone, and
not at al! on divergen ce; and th at th e erypt ic genetc sim ilarity is more imp or tant
to encode tha n the striking ph ysical, b ehavioral, and eeolog ical differenc es. That
seems anti thctical to both Darwin ian evolutiun (wh ich is fun damentally abo ut
adaptive divergenee) an d to anthropology itself (which is pre d icated on th e specal
in terest aecorded to humans in the pa noply of nature). As we wiIl see in ch apter 10,
th e newer classifieation also has an adverse effeet on th e h andl ing of our extinct
relatives. That is why 1don't use it.
 138 C HAPTER 7 IS THAT AN AP E I N YO UR G EN ES?
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE 98 % GENETI CA LLY
CH IMPA NZEE?
It is now wid ely known that whe n we com pare the DNA ba ses of a ch impanzee to
those o a human , over 98% of th cm will match. Given th is gcnc tic corresp on
dence, it is easy to slip into the conelusion th at we are "n oth ing but '' slight ly ma de-
over ch im pan zees. It is imp or tant, therefcre, to look carefulIy at th e true mea n ing
of the 98% genetic similarity. Th ere are three po ints that may not be imm ediate ly
obviou s bu t are cru cial for the proper interpret ati on of the 98% genetic sim ilarity
to chimpanzees.
Fir st, there is still m uch room for tremendous d fference to ha ve arise n between
the two species. Rem ember th at the sz of a m utatio n does not predict the size of
its effect- thc sma llest change in a piece ofDNA can result in eith er no problem, or
a life-threatening disease, or anything in b etween. An d since the genome is com-
pri sed of3 ,200,000,000 nucleotides, a 1% differen ce woul d mea n 32,000,000 differ-
ent nueleot ides. There is certai nly no problem in gene ratin g the biological cha ngcs
responsible for the differen ccs betw een a ch im panzee an d a hum an .
Second, it shou ld not be th at surprising to learn that we are 98% gene tically
identical to ch im panzees. After all, Iife on ea rt h com es in amazingly diverse forms.
Simp ly among the primates, we have not ed features like the absence of a tail, rota t-
. ing shoulder, and Y-5 dental panero in th s chapter that show ho w similar phys-
cal1y we are to chim pan zees. But f we broaden ou r sco pe and com pare humans
an d chimpanzees to starsh, we will find that bone for bone, nerve for ner ve, mus-
ele for muscle, organ for organ, the human and the chimpan zee mat ch - and the
sta rfish (an echi noderm) does notoIn the gre at scope of life on earth, hu mans are
certa inly at least 98% physically sim ilar to ch impan zees- so th e 98% gcnc tic sim-
ilarity sce ms h ard ly out of place.
And fin al1y, ou r ideas of similarity and difference are cultu rally loaded. We
think of a sca le of sim ilarity ra ngin g from 0% (campletely dffercnt ) to 100%
(completely the same), with 98% being clase to th e same. Yet DNA docsn't work
th at way. Recall that DNA is a pc lymer, a long strin g of sim ple subunits, and that
there are only four subun lrs-c-A, G. C. and T. What thi s means is th at any ncleo-
tide has a on e in four chance of m atch ing any other nucl eotid e pureiy at random-
Put another way. twu ra ndom ly gene rated DNA sequen ces are sta tistically con-
strained to match 25% of the time. If we look at two strings of 60 nuc leotides, we
randomly expect them to match in 15 places.
While you could generate two DNA seq uen ces tha t wou ld mat ch nowhere,
that woul d not be a ran dom comparison - and a random compa rison is OUT base-
lineoGiven th at ran domn ess gen era tes a 25% DNA mat ch , it follows th at hu man
DNA and DNA bascd Iife anywhere eIse in the universe. with n o genealogi cal con
nection to liS, would be co nstrained to mat ch 25% of the time. O r, mo re ear th
boun d , our DNA m ust match any other DNA from any species on th is pla net over
25% of th e time, sin ce alllife on earth is ultimately linked by cornrnon a :1Ccs ~ ry.
which gen erates m ore sim ilarity than pure randomness.
References an d Purther Reading 139
In other words , while our DNA marches th at of a chi mpa nzee at ove r th e 98%
level, it matche s the D:N"A of th e banana the chimpanzee is eating at over the 25%
level. Yet th ere is h ardly any way we can imagine ourselves to be over one -qu arter
ba nan a-except in our D NA.
AHof wh ich is n ot to deny th e 98% genetic denttty ofhuman an d chmpanzee,
but to show tha t it contains a Iot of cultural infor mation as well, an d has no sta nd .
alone self-cvident biolog ical mea ning. DNA sim ilarity is sim ply on e way of com -
paring thngs, no more meaningful or meaningless than othe r ways of comparng.
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Un iversity Press .
Cam p bcll, c.. A. Fu en tes. K. Ma clcin n on , M . Panger; and S. Bearder; eds. 2006 . Primates in
Perspective. New York: O xford University Press.
Challn e, J., B. Dutrillaux, J. Cou turier, A. Durand, and D. M arch and. 1991. Un mod ele
chr omosom lque et pal ogeographique dvolutlo n d es pr im ates sup rieurs. Geobtos
24:105- 110.
Cup py. W. (193 1) How to Tell Your Friendsfrom the Apes. Ncw Yo rk: Horace Lvcri gh t.
Delson, E., I. Tat tersall, J. Van Cou vering , and A. Brooks, ed s. 2000 . Encyclopeda of Human
Evolution and Prehstory, 2nd ed. New York: Ga rla nd .
Dupr , J. 200 3. Darwins l egacy: What Evolution Means Today. Ne w York: Oxford Un lve r-
sity Press.
Pleagle, J. 1998. Primate Adaptation and Evotut on . 2n d ed. San Diego: Acad emic Press.
Foss ey, D. 1983. Gorlasin the Mist. New York : Houghton Mifflin.
Good all, J. 1971. /n the Shadow of Man. l'\T ew York: Hought on M ifflin .
Gorman, J. 1989. The Man with No Endorphins:An d Other Reflections on Science. New York:
Pengun.
Graves, C. 2001. Why taxo no m ic stability is a bao id ea, or Why ar e the re so few species of
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an d Pri m ate Sys tem atics. lo Descendedf rom Darwin: Ins gbts nto the History of Evou-
t onary Stud es, 1900-1970. ed. J. Ca n an d M. Ru se, 93 -109. Philadelpha, PA: Am eri -
can Philosop hical Sod ety.
Hollida y, T. 2003. Sp ecies conc cpts, reti cula tio n , an d h um an evoluti on. Current Anth ropot-
ogy 44:653-673.
Hrd y; S. B. 1999. Mother Nature . NewYork: Pantheon.
Kafka , r. 1917. Ein Berichtfu r cine Akademie [Rep ort to an Acad erny]. http://record s.viu .
ca/- joh nsroi/kafka/ report foracadem y.htm
Mark s, J. 2003. 98% Ch imp an zee and 35% Daffodil: The Human Genomc in Evo!ut ionary
and Cultura l Co n text. In Genetic Nature/Cutture:Anthropology and Science Beyond the
Two Culture Divi de. ed. A. Goodman, D. H cat h, and M. S. Ltndee, 132- 152. Berkeley:
Uni vcrsity 01' Ca liforn ia Pr ess.
Marks. J. 2005. Phylogenrtic trces and evolution ar y fore sts. Evolutionary Anthropology
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Mar ks. J. 2009 . W h at is the viewpoi nt of hemoglob in. and does it m atl er? History and Phi.
losophy of lhe Life Scietlces 31:239-26 0.
140 CHAPTE R 7 IS T H AT AN APE I N YOUR GENES?

Sayers, K. and C. O. Lovejoy. 2008. The chimpanzee has no clothes. Current Anthropology
49:87-11 4. CHAPT ER 8
Schiebinger, L 1993. Natures Body. Boston, MA : Beacon.
Schwartz, J., ed. 1988. Orang-Utan Biology. New York: Oxford University Press. 1'-"'
Somme r; M. 2008. History in the gene: Negotiations between molecular and organismal
anth ropology. lou rnal o/ the History o/Biology41:473- 528.
Str ier; K. B. 1994. The myth of the typical primate. Yearbook o/ Physical An thropology
37:233- 271.
Apes Run Around Naked, Live in
Strler, K. B. 2011. Primate Behavioral Ecoogy, 4th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
forthcorning Trees, and Fling Their Poo. Do You?
Strum, S. C. and L. M. Fedigan. 2000. Primate Encounters: Models o/ Science, Gender, and
Society. Ch icago, lL: University of Ch icago Press. (On the Relevance of Apes to
Thorpe, S., R. Holder, and R. Crompton. 2007. Or igin of human bpedalsm as an adapta-
tion for locomotion on flexible branches. Science 316:1328- 1331. Understanding Humans)
Wildman, D. E., M . Ud di n, Guozhen Liu , L. Grossman, and M . Goodm an. 2003. Implica-
tons of natural selection in shaping 99.4% nonsynonyrnous DNA identity bctween
humans and chrnpanzees: Enlarging genus Horno. Proceedings of the National Acad- TH EM E
emy of Scences, U S A 100:7181- 7188.
Wrangham, R. and O. Peterson 1995. Demonc Males. New York: Houghton Mifflin. Hu m an nature has a dual cha racter, bei ng both derived fro m prim ate biology and
Yoon, C. K. 2009. Nam ng Nature: The Clash Between nstinct and Scence. Ncw York: yet also d ivergen t fr om it. The re a re very few th ings we can learn about humans
W. W. Norto n. from stu dying apes that we can'! Icaco be tter by studying hu man s, for th e imp or-
tan ce of the apes for evolutiona ry st ud ies lies in thercontrast with the human
condition. Th e majar issues in primatology taday focus on co nscrvin g primates
in th e wild, and ens uring tha t they are t rea ted humanely and sen sitively in
captivity.

WHAT PRIMATES CAN AND CAN' T TELL US

Prim ates, and especially apcs, hold a specal symbolic place in the natur al world,
being the creatures that most obviously conneet us to the rest of the ani mal king-
domoAs a result of th at symbolic sgn cance, prim ates artOalso vested with pclt -
ical relevance that oth er an im als lack. For exam ple, th e su pposed resembl ance of
black people to apes was emphasized in the nin cteenth century by defende rs of
slave ry, as a way oCdehuman izing th e slaves. T hat historical use of t he apes to
satiric ally de human izc people is still a sensit ive issue. Consequently, in the twcn ty-
first cent ury; political oppone nts of President George Vv. Bush ro ut inely carica-
tu red hi m as looking lke a simian (see wwwbushorchimp.com for examp les): but
po litical opponents ofPresident Barac k Obama have to find other outlets for their
sati rical ur ges.
The political and symb olic power that apes hold m akes it par licu larly d ifficult
to establish what th ey ' really" are like, for it means that any attem pt to und erst and
them must inevita bly be refracted th ro ugh cultur al lenses. The best-known pr i-
mat es in the wo rld, the chi mpanzees of Gom be , Tanzania, studied by Iane Goo dall
and h er colleagues, show this very strikingl y. Gooda lls fam ous 1971 book, In the
Shadow o/ Man, was a chronicle ofher first dccade th ere. She gave cach ch impanzee

14 1
 142 CHAPT ER 8 APE S RUN ARO UND NAKED
a name and identity and showed chimp life to be largely carefree-coneerned with
Iife, food , social interactions, attaehme nt to one ano ther, and of wild sexual aban-
don at the appropriate times. It resonated as a happy hippie com mune. In the next
decade, patho logies began to appear-episodes of nfanticide, cannbalsm, and
even the elimination of the memb crs of one community by their neighbor s. This all
sounded rather like Ewings of Dallas or the Carringtons of Dy nasty-the two most
popular prime-time soap operas of the era. By the 1990s. what had formerl y been
pathological was now considered strategic; and the differences in behavior of df-
ferent groups of chimpanzees mirrore d the multicult uralism of American society.
And finally,in the twenty-first century, as polls show about half of adult Americans
don't accept evoluton, the Gombe chimpanzees now show just how much "lke us"
they rcally are. . shown sorne eonsisteney with both a genetic pattern and a contagious pattcrn . It
Granted that chimpanzees are doing the things as the prim atologists report-
groups of males going un patrol to defend a tur f, likc a primitive version of West
Sde St ory; but without the seore, dialogue, or choreography-thc question is, how
do we know what that behavior means? It is hard enough to figure out what is
going on in the head of someone ofa different sex, much less someone of a dffer-
ent culture, and very much less someone of a different species. But that is the ques-
tion at the hear t uf contemporary studies of "wild" chim panzees.
The situation is not much different for the study of captive chimpanzees,
either. Chimpanzees in zoos and those reared in a human ho rne have been valu-
able sources of information about the cogn itive abilities of apes. But the cost ls that
the information has been very hard for humans to understand because raising a
chimpanzee in a human environment is essentially very intensive training. And if
you train a chimpanzee to aet human , does it not stand to reason that the chm-
panzee will show you sorne amazing smlartnes! Circus trainers for generations
have shown us th at chimps can rid e tricycles and sip tea and smoke cigarettes-
but they ddn't purporl to tell us thal they had shown anyth ing scientific al all
abou t its ment al or behavioral relaton to humans.
So what are we to rnake ofthe stories of apes raised in huma n environments,
under constant human stimulation, which end up aeting in recogn izably human
fashons! Do they tell us anyth ing abo ut ourselves? Do they tell us anythng about
themselves? Or do they simply show that development and maturation is a bioso-
cial activity, and after rearing the apes in an aberran tly hu man cont ext, you will
readily be able to see human qualities in them !
Intertwined in all of thi:-. s the faet that the apes are aIJ endangered speces,
threatened by the encroaclunent of human societies, ranging from deforestation to
. cons uming prlmatesas food, or "bushmeat" Onthe one hand, we would be ver}"
loath to see any huma n being starve lo death for the sake of an ape: but on rhe
other hand, it would be nice to be able to offer an inducement lo anyone willing to
forgo that baby gorilla sandwich for a tray of Big Macs. Moreover, their genetic
similarity to people makcs the apes especially prone to come down with infectious
diseases fram humans, which is another reaso n why their numbers are precipi-
tously declining.
Primate Fieldwork 143
Iron cally, on e of the few human diseases that chim panzees do not get is
AIDS. While it mig ht conceivably be useful to discover just what chimpanzees
have, which prevents the HIV viru s from destroyin g their immun e systems, there
is currently no AIDS research on chimp anzees going on in the United States or
Europe. Heightencd sensitivity to the conditions of chimpan zees in captivity and
to thei r Uves as experimental subjects has sim ply wiped this research program off
the scientific map . Ths raises the issue of the moral econorny of apes in research:
How can we balance !he welfare of apes against the welfare of humans! Ape lives
have already saved hu man lives: for example, a mysterio us disease known in Papua
New Guinea as kuru was the focus of the (ultimately Nobel Prize winning) work
of D. Carleton Gajdusek. At the outset of the resear ch, the incidence of kuru had
was very specificalIy the ability to induce the symptoms in a chimpanzee, which
led to the recognit ion that it was infectious (and indeed, the first example of a
prion disease, in the same category as Mad Cow), and was being spread by funer-
ary pr actices.
Can we find a wa)' to use chimpanzees humanely in research to help develop
treatments for a disease that does not manifest itself in them clinically, but may
manifest itself in millions of people? Right now we are not even tr ying. Even worse,
infectious diseases like Ebola are still decim ating ape populations in the wild, and
withou t biomedic al research, their prospects are grim .
PRIMATE FIELDWORK
The most fundamental difference amo ng studies of the nonhuman primates is the
condtions under which they are studied. Captive studies are those in which pri-
mates are studied under cond itions tbat are highly constru cted: notably, zoos and
laboratories. Wild studies are those in which primates are studi ed under eondi-
tions of rninimal disturban ce-c-as they are "naturally" Of course, most prima te
habitats are dtsturbed to sorne extent; and the ubiquitous presence of humans,
sometimes provisioning the ani mals, sometimes hunting the anmals, means that
a state of complete "naturalness" is an illusion.
Th e advantages of wild studies are obvious - you get a glimpse of wha t
the behavior of the pr imates is Iike und er the most no rmal cond itions of thcr
existcnce. But th ere are disadvantages as well. Primates at their "wlldest" are not
too fond ofbeing observed by large bipedal creatures with binoculars, and mu- r
be habituated to aceept a hu man presence. In the most extreme cases, thi s
may take severa l frustrati ng months. Note the paradox: to stud y prim ates au
naturel, you must transform thern fundament ally by making them tole rate your
pre sen ce.
The difficulties of wild studies are also wor th consideri ng. Pirst, there s
the general rigor of fieldwork, living far from th e comfort of home, with a mini -
mum of convenien ces. Second, there is the fact that most fieldwork must be
condu cted in p.oor eountries, in rural areas, with Iittle governmental prescnce or

144 C HA PTER 8 . APE S RUN AROUND NAK ED
protection - so n ot only is it inconvenient , it is often dangerous. Third , th e ani-
ma ls are oftcn hard to locate-even habituated ones. Fourth, setti ng up expe ri-
ments, even f feasible, dcfeats th e pur pose of studying them "in their native
h abitat"- so you can really only watch and record what th ey do, and no t really
know wh at they would do und er slightly different cir cum stan ces. Fifth, to obtain
enough data for statisticaI treatments, you gene rally have to be in the field for sev-
eral years. And sixth, t's frightfully expenslve.
A captive study also ha s advan tages and disadvanta ges. The major advan tages
are th at it is cheap an d con venient (as long as you don' t figure in the costs and
trav ails of esta blishing and mainta in ing the captive po pul ation yourself!). The ani-
ma ls are always th ere, an d consequently you don't have to spe nd time Iooking for
th em . Moreover, th ey can't flee very far'from you. Because th ey are there, you can
also study them much m or e exten sively an d under m ore controlled cond itions.
You can see them en ough tim es to do stat istical studies, and can give them psycho -
logical tests. O n the oth er hand, captive primates may be different from their wi ld
conspecifcs. Because th ey are provsloned, th ey exercise less and eat more, and
thus are commo nly bigger and fatter th an wild pri mates. T heir social grou p size
m ay be a simple con sequ ence of th e number of anim als the zoo was able to pro -
cure, which m ay affeet th eir behavior.
In general. we have to ackn owledge that wild studies tell us what primates do;
caprve studies tell us wha t they are capable of.
Ano ther importan t d istin ction is between short -term and long-term stu dies.
The advantage of long-term studies les in the seope of data : rainy season versus
d ry season, annual fluctu atio ns, life cycles, dem ograph ics. Th e d sadvantages He in
th e logistics- gen erating enough fun ding over a lon g enough pe riod of tim e, usu-
ally under uns table po litical con dlt on s, as well as the sometimes scatte rsh ot qual-
ity of th e dat a. A well-focu sed, sh ort- term stu dy has value in yielding a sharply
focused answer to a narrow, specflc question -more "ba ng for the buek." But the
long-term data contain th e keys to the primates' survival in the face of eco logical
an d demograph ic disruptions.
In sorne ways, p rimate fieldwork may seem superficialIy like ethnography-
YOil v isit a group in a rem ote place and record what the y do. So wh at if the group
Is monkeys, not peop lei
Actually, however, th e d fferences between prirn ato logy and ethnography are
mo re strikin g th an the sm flart ies. After all, ethnographers get mcst of the r data
from talking to the p eople th ey work with. Por n or only is an ethnograph er rner-
ested in recording what peopl e do, but also in wha t they think they're dong. what
they th ink they ought lo do, and whal they wish they cou ld d o but can't. Fur ther;
th e ethnographer learn s abou t other peo ple in th e gro up - which is why it has
been rem arked tha t ethno graph ers tr ade in go ssip. and why th ey get d rawn into
the social po lities of th eir subje cts. T he ethnograph er usually lives with th e people
studied, actively pa rticipates in the ir daily lives, an d req uires thei r explic it per mis-
sion to work the re. T his is all obviously quite dfferent from the work tha t prima-
tolog ists do.
Primates in Groups 145
PRIMATES IN GRO UPS
Primates navigate a sea of cos ts and benefits in gro up lfe: groups repel predators
but a1so attract the m gro ups can find food sou rces more easily but necessitat e
sha ring them ; gro up s perm it mates to be read ily avail able but m ay create a n eed to
compete for access to th em .
How do pri mates know where th ey belong in their group s?'In fact, the group
b eh avio r of primates consists of highly vari able ranges of affiliative and antagonls-
tic interac tions, with sorne pri mates hardly inter acting with onc ano ther beyond
their basic mi n ima l interests to stick togeth er. In th e more soci al speces. a primat e
learn s a do mi n ance herarchy, wh ich primatologists infer by studying the inter ac-
tions between pairs cf ndviduals, an d evaluating them across th e socia l gro up.
Th ese interaction s mar range fro m actual fight s to th e subtle ability of one individ-
ual to displace another (to compel th at individual to get up and walk away)- or
simply th e sangfroi d to ign or e a threat directed one's way.
The dominan ce hierarchy h as often been regardcd as a result of m ales striving
to reproduce mo st efficient ly, by cornpcting for th e best opp ortunities to ferti lize
th e best fema les. But cviden ce relat ing position in a do minance hierarchy to repro-
ductivc success h as not been easy to come by. 'I'h e "pec kin g order" am on g m ale
pri mates is often sufficiently eph em er al as to ren der very temporary any preferen -
tial access to m ates; and th e extent to wh ich rank affects a females ability to sur-vive
and repro duce is also unclear. Primates cornmonly form "coalitions" to dem ote an
anim al with a high ra nk, thus sh ifting th e relation sh ips througho ut th e hi erarchy.
Fur th ermore , the relation sh ips within the hi erarchy are eorn monly not linear- so
th at one monkey ma y dom n ate a second, and th e second ma y dominate a th ird,
but the third m ay dominate th e first.
Th us, dorninance is regarded by primatologists as a state, rath er th an as a
tr ait. It changes th rough time, an d a prlmate's social skills an d temp era m ent m ay
have a greater effect upon it th an cru de size aud st reng th . Co nse que ntly, althou gh
sorne scientists bel ieve th at th ere is an inti mare relaton sh p between dorninan ce
and reproductive success in hu man an cestry, it has prove n di fficult to dem on-
strat c a con sistent cffect of the one upon the othe r in pri ma te soci eties. Othe r
facto rs, fro m m ate choice to strat egic coaltons, act to level the repr oduct lve
playing field .
Another way in which dominan ce relationships are expressed is in th rcat ds-
plays. T he ext ent to which these are effectivc at getti ng another pr ima te to back
down or go away is another rnarker of th e prima tes p osition in the domi na nce
h erarchy. Different prim ate species accomplish this in dfferen t ways- a ring -
tailed lem ur waves its conspicuous tail, a squirrel mo nkey brandishes his pens, a
baboon yawn s to shov its form ida ble can ine teeth , and a gorilla th umps its chest.
Oth er disp lays may accompan y th e stereotyp ed beh avior- shaking branchcs,
jumpi ng. piloerecti ng (havin g the hair bristle), and vocalizing. It couId be argued
th at the homolog of this beh avior in mod een society is th reatening to call you r
lawyer.
 146 C H AP TE R 8 AP ES RUN A RQ UN D NA KED
SOCIAL BEHAVIOR AND EC O LO GY
Primates live longer than most other mammals, particularly when species of the
same body weght are being compared. As a result, primates spend more time
acquainting themseIves with the physical and social universe, learning how to
man ipulate It, and one ano ther, to achieve their ends.
Living primates span a considerable range in body size, from the mou se lemur
to the gorilla, and ma ny particula rs of primate life history are reIated to bod y size.
Most primates give birth to one offspring at a time. the exceptions being pr inci-
pally galagos and callitrichids, who tend to have twins. A pri mate infant thus does
not have to compete for attention against littermates, as many mammalian infants
mus t. Further, in comparison to other mammalian infant s, a primate is very
altricial-poorly developed and un able to function well on its own and thus
needing more attention and assistance for a longer period of time tha n other
young marnmaIs. Thi s long period of relatively sIow development compels a
primate to be a good learn er- not only in relation to its environment , where it
will have to learn what to eat and where to find it, but also in relation to other
membe rs of its group, who may be new immigran ts or aggressive compe tltors, or
the stable rcsidents of a ncw cornm unity with whom it must coexisto
Being boro is the first th ing any prim ate does, and usually it is not too diffi-
cultoMost other primates do not seem to havc so difficult a time as humans do,
becau se their heads are smaller and consequently pass through the morher's birth
canal more easily.A pri mate mother generally gves birth to her infant alone, wlth-
out assistance, and eats the placent a shortly thereafter. Like many mamm als, a
primate mother sensitizes her newb orn to her smelI and hcr presence by licking it
cIean. The baby can c!i!lg to its mother's fue and suckle from her npple, and she
will shield it from ot her members of the group, however curlous they may be, for
at least a few days. Gradually the infant will be exposed to its mother's relativcs; it
will not know its biological father. but will after a while be exposed to the resdenr
males, any of whom might well be its father. In general, the amount of male care a
baby receives is roughly proportional to the likelihood that thc particular maje is
.he child's father: strongly palr-bonded primate species tend to have much care
given by the male, whiIe more promiscuous primate spcccs have little.
Very young primates are almost wholly dependent upon their moth ers for
their survi val-but survi val is more than just nutrition: it is comfort as well. The
psychologist Harry Hadow studed young rhesus monk eys in the 1950s to test
whether they identified as "mothcr" simply whatever they derived nu trition frorn
L (such as a wire doll with a bottle) o r whcther they went for something soft and
warm. Soft and warm won hands down.
In many speces, the newborn has a distinctive appearancc. such as a different
color coat pattern , that allows it to be seen and Identified readily.They tend to lose
thi s characteristic coloraton around the time that they distinguis h stranger s from
more familiar kin or friends. If someth ing happ ens to the mo ther after weaning. it
is not uncommon for a matern al relative to take care of the infant , a behavor
Social Behavor and Ecology 147
called "alloparen ting" As an nfant (with a mother) matur es, allopa renting
becomes common in many primate species, and other adults in the group may
"babysit"-although this s quite variable from species to species.
However, without a mother, a primate infant is at great risk. Certa inly the
most famou s "mamas boy" in the primate Iiterature is a Gombe chimpa nzee
named Pllnt, whose mother Flo was quite old when he was bo ro and was unable to
wean him successfully Flo had another baby, but couId not coerce 5-year-old Flnt
away from her nippIe. When the baby died, Flint remained at his mother's side.
When Flint was 8 years old, Plo died- and to the extent that we can infer grief
from chimpanzee behavior, he grieved over her corpse. And Flint himself died just
a few weeks later of symptoms that looked, for all intent s and pu rpases, like
depression.
In general, the birth of a new infant is a signal for the older infant to becornc
more ind epend ent- socialize mo re with age-mates and other group members,
and to be weaned from the mcther's suppIy of milk. Th is marks the trans ition from
an infant to a juvenile. Juvenile primates begin to develop sex-specific roles, with
males generalIy nvolved in more mock-aggressive play and females involv~d. in
more rnock-matern al play. Sorne juvenile play also involves sexual acttvty,
a1though neither sex s mature or fertile yct. A prim ate .t hat nears sexual maturi ty,
and is nearly fully grown, is called a subadult. In many species, th s is a time of
consider able tenson, as the subadult male baboon begins to rise in the dominance
herarchy, while at the same time is becoming marginalized from his tro op. Male
baboons transfer into new tro ops when they reach adulthood; in chimpanzees, it
is the females who transfer. Transfer out of the natal group may occur shortly
before or after sexual maturity. Obvou sly, the social consequences and experi-
ences of the primate who transfers into a new group will be different from those of
a primate who remains in the same social gro up for its whole lfe.
In general, primates interact preferenti alIy and most agreeably with :hose
with whom they are most intimately familiar. This interaction can subsu me Simple
tc leraton, through mutual groorning. to the sharing of food. In pract cc. thls pref-
erence is extended principally to those group members who are most closely
related to its moth er-her own siblings and their offspring-the ones the mother
has known and tru sted eno ugh to allow near her infant as it grows.
The size and compositicn of the group depend s upon severa! factors. One is
genetics: sorne species naturall y associate in very small groups (such as marm o-
scts) or considerably larger grou ps (such as chmpanzees). Some naturally .form
monogamous pair-bonds (Iike gbbons), and oth ers form groups with one adult
male and several adult females, anthropornorphically sometimes called harems
{like ham adrya s baboons). In sorne primates, like chimp anzees and spider mon-
keys. group s period ically divide or coalesce, a social arra ngement called "~ssionl
fusin " Other factors that infl uence group size are food preference (species th at
eat diverse dets, or preferentialIy e<1 1 things that are abundant, such as leaves, tend
.to assocare in Iarger groups than pri mates that eat, for examp le, in sects-~hich
are too hard to catch, and too small to nou rish a lot ofprimates at the same time ),
,f 148 C H A PT ER 8 AP ES RUN A ROU N D NA KE D
habita t (a con tinuous habitat, such as th e gro und, makes it easier lo sustain a larger
population than a d iscontinuous or patchy forest does ), the kind s of predators in
the area (five male baboons may ind uce a leopard lo back off, whereas on e male
babo on might not be able lo), and act ivity patterns (diurna l primates, active in the
deylght , ten d l o live in largcr groups than nocturnal p rim ates-presum ably living
in large gro ups would defeat the evoluti on ar y advan tage of being n octurna l, tha t
is, being less detectable to predators) . With so many facrors al work, it is dlffcult
. lo predict the group size of any particu lar prim ate species al any particul ar time
accu rately; withou t actu aIly observing th em . Moreover, we have very Iittle in for-
mation on the range of var atio n exhibited in behavior s of different po pulatio ns of
the sam e species.
Groups of prim ates organ ize them selves social1y in sur prisingly diverse ways,
an alogous to the vario us forros ofsocial organization anthrop ologists stu dy among
different human societies. Th ere are two crucial dfferen ces, however. Eirst, basc
aspects of th e social organ izatio n of a prim ate spe cies appear to a considerable
extent to be "hardwired" or determin ed instinc tively. In a famous disaster, scien -
tists at the London Zoological Gardens in 1927 pu t 30 femalc h am adryas baboons
into wha t h ad previously been an all-m ale gro up, in a crcumscribed area-not
realizing that ma le h am adr yas babo ons physicalIy coerce females into harcms by
naturc. \ Vithin a montb, half of the females wer e dead , literally torn to pieces by
competin g males sim ultaneously trying to establish harems. Hu mans, of course,
can adopt different forro s of social organi zation read ily, and have in deed done so
over the millennia and acro ss th e continents, and consequently cannot be labeled
as h aving any p articular kind of natural social for mo
Th e secon d crucial difference is the huma n d ifference ofcreating social bonds
fro m the fabricated wor ldof laws, which are co mparable in power to the bonds
th at eme rge fro m natu re. Thus, th e ro les of t husban d," "gen itor;' "provder," "pro -
tector;' "hea d of household,' and "mother's sexual partner" m ay not refer to the
same pcrs on at any given time. Likewise, a "mate" and a "spo use" are not equiva-
lent-c-the lau er is a legal stat us, th e former a soco- bologcal ro le. And of course,
the statu s oftt n- laws" has no parallel in nonhum an pri mates.
Bearing thos e differences in mind, how ever, we can see social forms in the
non human prim ates that are qu ite easy to identify with. Amon g the smalles t pri -
mates of thc New wo rld, we fin d com mo nly that an adult fem ale will have two or
three regular mates. Th is seem s to be related to the d ifficulty that small primates
have in giving birth (with th e offsprin g belng relatively large com parcd to the
moth er) an d the callitrich id habit ofhaving twi ns. Bein g bon ded to mu ltiple m ales
seems to be their way of insuring that th e babies are adequ ately provisioned and
carr ied safely- an nterpretatlon that is suppor ted by th e fact tha t even older sib-
Iings help out with the infan ts.
The ran ge ofsocial behavors in primate s is staggering. On one end are gener-
ally un social prim ates, such as the orangutan, po rto, and sorne lemurs. On the
other end Iies prim ate spec ies in whic h severa! -nales ordin ar ily consor t with sev-
eral ad ult females- a multimale group-found in rh esus monkeys, savan na
Food 149
baboons, and chi mpan zces, as well as in mu riqu i monkeys of Brazil and th e lemur -
Iike sifaka of Madagascar. In between He monogamous prim ates, or a social unit
incIu d ing only one adu lt ma je and one adult female, charac ter istic of the gibb ons
as well as so rne callitrichids and prosimians; species of callitric hids in wh ich sev-
eral m ales att end to a single female: and species that ordi narily have one adult
mal e with several females an d offsp ring . Even here, howeve r, new DNA tech nolo-
gies are sh owing hi gh rates of "cuckoldry" or "cheattng"- the resdent adult maIe
may not b e th e sire of all th e offspr ing.
Sinc e m acaques, baboons, an d ch impa nzees are th e best -stud ied primat e spe-
ces, th ere has been a tendency to overemphasize th eir socia l systems at the
exp ense of the diversry of socia l forms foun d in othe r primates, and ind eed even
in other prim ates that associat e in multimale groups. Primatologist Karen Strier
calls th is d ispr oportion ate focus on th e m acaque , babo on , and ch impanzee society
"the myth of the typ cal prim ate"- the idea that the y repres ent the essence of pri-
mate soci al organization, rathe r tha n rep resenti ng simply how inte nsiveIy these
few sp ecies h ave been studied.
FD
Pr im ates derive their susten ance frorn thei r surroundin gs, like aHspecies. And like
all spec es. th ey need principally pro teins for cell growth and carbohyd rates for
energy. How th ey get the se, however, turn s out to vary qui te extensively.
Few primates reIy exclusively on one or a few foods but rath er eat ec1ectically
wha t is readily available. Most pri mate species have decided preferences in foods,
but they are ad apt able en ough that sorne m onkeys are no w exploiting the resources
.'
offered by hu man farms or by human garbagc as a pr ima ry foo d source. Thi s
som etimes has the trou blesom e side effect of havng local peopl e regar d th em as
pe sts,
Speces with high Iy specalzed diets often have adaptations that facilitate the
processing or digestion of their food . Thus folivorous (leaf-eating) langu r mon -
keys have a bioche mical convergen ce in the structure of th e enzyme Iysozyrne
(whic h breaks down the cell walls of plants) that gives th eir en zyme sorne of thc
pro perties of the cow's versi n of th e enz-yrne . They also have symb iotic bac teria in
thei r stomach s to help detoxify th eir food . Gonl las, also folivorous, have exten ded
passageways for th eir food. to maxim ize their ability to extract Its nutrients. Sorne
prima tes have adapted behaviorally to specialized diets by eating clay or charcoa l,
wh ich detoxifies sorne of th e vegetable m att er they also consu me. Certainly the
mos t extrao rdina ry of these spe cializations is that of th e gold en bamboo lemur,
who som ehow m ana ges to live on a diet th at conta ins mor e cyan ide than any other
specles cou ld toIerate!
In general. insectivory is an augm entatio n to a large-bodied prima tes diet- as
insccts are sma ll, h ard to catch, and hard to digest. The primates that have a m ajor
component of their d iet consisting of insects tend to be small bodi ed. On the ot~er
han d, insectivo ry ha s a hdlowed place in pri matology; as it was in getting ternutes
 I SO C HA P T ER 8 A PES RUN A RO U N D NAKE D
to eat that Iane Goodall witn essed a chirnpanzee narned David Graybeard take a
twig, tr im it, moi sten t, an d use it to pro be inside the mound-a chimp making
an d using a tool in the wild.
Folivory (eating leaves) can provde the bulk of prot en in a primates diet,
but only if the primate can digest th e leaves efficiently. As n oted aboye . mountain
gor illas and sorne colobines eat principally leaves. Gramnivor y (eati ng seeds) is
also a difficult way for a prim ate to sub slst, as seeds are h ard, sma ll, and tough to
digest. 1t is Ikely that our extinc t rclatives, the rob ust australopith ecines, h ad a lc t
of seeds in their diet, as their molar tceth were large and th ickly enarneled and
th cir chewing mu scles ver y strong. No living pri mate subststs principally on such
focds, but so m e-no tably, bab oons-do supplement the ir diets w th sceds. Gum-
n ivory (eating sap an d gum) is another way to augme nt the diet, as th ese are
foods rich in carbohydrates, an d readi1y available, f you have th e me ans to get it.
This would requi re the ability to gouge or gnaw. or to scrape the bark of a tre e, as
sorne pr osirnia ns an d callitrichi ds d o. Eating thi ngs that grow undergrou nd , like
roots and tub ers, is a way that so rne prim ates (like baboons) sup plem ent th eir
diets with a potentially rch sourc e of earbo hyd rates. However, bein g un der-
gro un d, th ey are no t very easy to locat e, and pigs are far bctter at it tha n pri mates.
It is also h ard for a primate to dig th ern up - and some anthropologists have
adv anced th e idea that human ancestors successfully exploited th is resource with
th eir earliest to ols.
Frugivory (eating fruit) s th e m ost generalized th eme of th e primate det.
providing even the familia r stere otype of the chim panzee with a ban ana. Most
primates have sorne part of their d iet cons isting of fruit. Fru its are very nutri tious;
however, th ey h ave the disadvantage of being distributcd in a very patchy and
unpredictable manner. Ind eed , sorn e anthropo logists argue tha t exploiting such a
resource successfully is what precipit ated tbe developm ent of the long per iod of
lea rning tha t ch aracterizes th e pr imate Jife cyele.
Pinally; carn ivory (meat eat ing} is a srnaU component of the pri mat e dict
gene rally. bu t It is of Interest l o us because our species eats m ore meat than otncr
prim ates do. Meat has the advantagc of bein g very nutr itious and comi ng in large
packages - and th e disadvantages of run nin g away when you tr y and get it, or even
figh ting back. Meat is consequen tly a high -risk an d hig h- reward food. It was on ce
tho ught tha t ataste for meat was un iqu e lo our spec les, but it is now clear that
many other prim ate spec ies-for example. baboons-will eat so rne mea t, an d will
even occasionally hu nt and kilI someth ing to cat it.
Much att en tion h as been focused on hun ting behavior in the chimpan zees, as
this was once thought to separate human behavior from th at of othe r primates. We
no w know, however, that (alone among the apes) chim pan zees enjoy m eat in their
dietoand wll even seek it out. It is n ot a major part of their det , but a regu lar one,
and one that involves sorne behaviors th at scem familiar and bizarr eo
. T he favore d prey of a chi mpan zee is the red colobus m onkey (althoug h
the y ha ve be en observed to kili and ea t ove r 30 other differcnt marnmalia n spe-
cies}, and at sorne sltes, ch imp an zees see m to derive the taste for fl~sh prma rily
Sexual Activity and Parenthood 151
during the d ry rnon th s of su m me r. The ch imps begi n by wor kin g thc msel ves up
in to an app arent frenzy. with ver y character stic movements an d vocalization,
th en they take off after th e gro up of m onkeys they want. Th e hunting pa rty co n -
sists mostly of mal es, wh o seem to have d ifferent strategies of atta ck in d fferent
sttes. Al Tal. a forest site in the Ivor y C oast, th e chim panzees work in a coor d i-
n ated fashio n, so rne driving th e prcy, so rne cir d ing th e pre y, sorn e chas ing,
and so rne b lockin g their avcnues of escape . At Gornbe in Tan zan ia, on the
oth er hand , thc chimpanzees work togeth er but in a seemingly less coordin ated
fashion- theyaH seem to b e doing the same th ngs, wh ich still allows the m to
n ab and devour a m onkey.
Tool use, which charac terizes hu man hunt ing. doesn't come into play com-
monly among th e chi mpanzees. They go after prey, grab it, and tea r it to bits. An d
unlike th e way they eat vegetablc food s, the carcass of the monkey is divided up
amo ng the hunt ing party. The chirnpanzees make very special beg ging gestu res
and sounds, and the kller of th e rnonkey distributes bits and pieces. And th e
chimps served first tend to b e th e closest fren ds, relatives, and allies of the suc-
cessful hunter. Sorne chimpa nze es have been obse rved to "spear" bu shbabies, by
essentially treating the m as If th ey were large term ites.
Chimpanz ee m eat consu mption also exten ds to eat ng dea d infa nts of th eir
own spec ies. The exte nt and meaning of pr ima te infant icide is still a ho tly con-
tested topie in anthr opology (seebelow) , but whe n it occu rs in chimpanzees, it
appears to be unquelj accompanied by the consu rnption of the dead infan t.
Oddly, chimp anzees never eat dead adult chimpanzees.
Beyond th e gruesome fascination with ch imp huntin g. carn tvory, and canni-
balism , how ever, perhaps the mo st int eresting aspe ct of primate diets presently is
the app arent ability of sorne primates to rnedicate themselves. Several primate spe -
cies h ave n ow been observed to walk lon g distances to eat a plant th ey don't ord i-
narily ingest, walking by perfectIy edible th ings to get to it , and appe ar not b e
enjoying it as th ey eat it Then chemical studies are used to show that these plants
have sorne m edicinal properties, and me dica1 stu d ies sho w th at sorne ailme nt
(such as intestinal pa rasites) th at the ani mals prcviously had is now abated. Obv -
ou sly we can no t read their mnds, bu t certainly a good circ u rnstantial case can be
made for zo opha rmacognosy- the kn owledge possessed by an other spccies about
th e ben cn clal effects of certain th ings in th eir environ ment.
SE XUAl. ACTI V IT Y AN D PAR ENTHOOD
Th e most important social knowledge that a primate h as is th e repro d uctive status
of the group's females. Thc vast majority of sexual activity in prima tes occurs at th e
tim e of female fert ility, wh i..j is generally the only tim e th at fema les are interested
in sex; in many specics, the males are not sexua lly interested at other times either;
and in sorne. the rnale's testes are resorbed into h s body when th e females are
infertile. Th e cues for female receptivity are comrnon1y beh avior al and olfacto ry,
and so rnel imes even spectacularly visual.
 152 C H A PT E R 8 A PE S RU N A RO UN D NA KED
In fertiJe fema le chimpanzees and babo on s, for exam plc, th e skn around the
genitalia. or perineum, expands grea tly and turns bri ght pink-e-a "sexual swelling."
At this time. she will generally solicit and receive a grea t deal of sexual att ention
from th e resident adult males. Often the fem ale willco pulate with m any males. but
research in recent years ha s shown th at th e females do not mate ha phazardly,
Sorne go off and mate with a single "friend" or "consort"; sorne go off and mat e
furti vely with ma les from other groups; and many do express preferences abo ut
who m th ey mate with within the group- a goo d protector. a food sh arer, oc simply
th e mo st dominant ma les at the time.
In many pr imate gro up s. the gen erallevels of te nsion and aggression rise with
th e onset of signals of fem ale fertility. Copul ation is usually brief less th an half a
m inute, with litt le tac tile explorato n. (Spider monkeys have been known to
copulate for up to twenty minutes, but tha t ls quite rare among the primates.)
In sorne primates with muItimale, mu ltfem ale social systems, the male cjaculate
can coagulate and form a "sperm plug," keeping the spe rm of oth er males out.
T his of course, puts a premium on ma ting with a fernale ea rly du rng he r estrus
pertod, alternatvely, sorne ma le prim ates reach in an d remove a spe rrn plug before
cop ulating.
In theory, th s may be an expr ession of "sperrn com pctton " Where several
m ales cop ulate with a sing le fert ile fema le, a m ale with a high er sperm eount m ight
h ave a repro duetive adva ntage over the others. If th ere is genetic varia tio n for il ,
the n selection co uId act on the popuIation to raise the spe rm counts of the m ales,
since th e ones wth high er sperm counts would be disprop ortionately fath ering
the children. The coagulation of sem inal fluid migh t just be another way of beat-
ing out the oth er fellow's sperm.
And indeed, we do find that chimpan zees have testes considerably larger tha n
those ofhum an s or gonlles, just as thi s scenario would pr edict. O n the other hand,
chi mpan zees also have very big ears, an d we don't have a good selective explan a-
tion for that. Big ears are consider ed [ust "one of tho se things"-and a good
remi nder th at t is often easy to come up with a plausi ble story for th e or igin of a
part icular trait, but ha rd to tell wheth er the story is really trucoNor do the chirn -
p;a nzees seem to be on e of the pr imate spectcs th at actually have spe rm plugs.
MO DELS FO R H UM AN EVOLUTION
The nature of being human has a dual character, being both d ertved fro m pr ima te
biolog y an d yet also divergent from it. While studying primate beh avior has tradi-
tionally hcld out the h op e of illuminatin g sorne asp ect s of human behavio r, it has
become less clcar just wh at it does show or ca n show abou t human behavior. Hcw -
eve r, even in th e mo st pessim istic view, studyi ng primate b ehavior is cer tainly
valuable for demo ns tra ting th e bre adth of var iation possible in a flexible, intelli-
gen t, an d adap table grou p of animals, likc hu mans. Ohviously th c "bg questlon"
for primate beh avior-c-and of course, for its inelu sion in an thropology curricula-
is. \Vhat do we learn abo ut hu ma ns from th e primates?
Models for Human Evolution 153
T hc ans wer is n ot as readily apparent as mlght immedi ately be snggest ed .
With gras ping hands, large b rain s, an d long lives, th e prima tes will natura lly
appe ar to do things th at recaU what hu man s do. In studying them , though , do ,we
learn anything about humans th at wouldn't be better learn ed from studyng
humans themselves?
The fir st thing to reca ll, f wc want to con sider the re1 ationsb ip of human to
p rima te b eh avior crtttcally, is th at there are two kinds of relationship s t~ be dr~wn
b ctwcen an ma ls and hum ans. All cultu res h ave stori es about the meamngful stm-
ilariti es betw een th e natura l worl d and our own lives. The most famous example
of thi s in Eu ropean literatur e was the wor k of th e Roman write r Aesop, who used
th e crafty fax. th e regal Iion, the elever m cnkey, an d many ot hers to derive moral
lessons for hi s rea de rs.
But Ch arles Darwin showed in th e nin eteenth centu ry th at th ere was ano th er
way to consid er a comparison between an imal and human . Instead of th e conn~c
tio n between an ima l and person being literary or meta ph orical, th e connecu on
could be real an d physical, biologically deep, a pro du ct of th e shared ance stry the
two species hav e in commo n. This relationship carne to be known as homology
(ch apter 3). wh ile the symbolic relatio nship carne to be known as ana to.gy., A~al
ogy can ran ge fro m the literature of Aesop to the similarity between a b rds ",:: ng
and a bees wtn g. In both cases. th e spccies h avc "solved a commo n pr~b~em of
leaving th e ground by pushing against the air with broad appendages. ~hls 15 a real
bological reIationship in the sense of bioen glnee ring: but it is ~I so lInporta~t~y
symb olic, however, in th at th e appendages in qu est on are so d fferent th at i t 15
more biologically m sleadng to call them both "wngs " The fact th at we have .a
word to apply to both can conceal just how very different fun ctiona lly. anatomi-
cally, genetical1y. an d developmentally th cy really are. .
Th e same d s nction exists when we compare behaviors acruss specres,
although it is eve n more vexing to tease out the difference between h ornology and
analogy, given hoc... mueh easie r it is te changc a behavior than a bo~y ~art. . .
Perhaps the best cremple of ths is our difficul ty in understandlllg infanticide
in primates. Th e act that involves an ad ult killing a ver~ you ng ~emb~r of the
sam e species ha s been found across th e prim ates. Sorne prt rnatologists believe th~t
)'I. ung primates live und er a constant th reat of murder-not ~ust by ~Trtue of th.eH
over all vulnerability, but as a general behaviorat fact of primate hfe-to whi ch
their rnoth ers must adapt.
lf we compare infanti cide in langu rs, chimpanzees, a.nd peopl~. h~we:er. ""
find no table d fferen ces. In langu r mo nkeys (Astan colobin es). wh ich hve m UOl-
m ale groups, a new male will occasion ally displace an oIder one and ": ake over''
h is females. Th en he may kili the offspring. an d shc may becom e fertile, ~n~ he
m ar father he r next childr en. Sorne primatologists have argued that this 1S a
"re productive stra teg y" on th e part of th e male langur s; it is an act tha t helps them
pass on th eir gen es. Othe rs contest whct he r it happens freque ntly eno ugh to b e
. h ther it is Iike gel-
considered a st rategy at aH, requirin g constant l~ l!:' !1 U On , or W e .
ting struck by ligh tn ing; whether it is pa rt of th c "normal" behavior al repe rtOIre
 154 C H AP TE R 8 APES RUN A RO UNO NAKE D
of langurs, or a pathological result of environmental d isturbance and high po pu-
lation density; wh ether It is overreported by vir tue of being inferred by prima-
tolog ists far more frequently than it is actu ally witne ssed; and whethe r it actually
does induce the female to become fer tle more quickly than if the babies were left
alone.
Suffice it to say we are not about to resolve tho se questions here; but being
good evolutionists, we might seek to gain a deeper un derstand ing of th e phenom-
enon by com paring it in d fferent species.
So we take a loo k at infanticide in chimpanzees. Once again , we find it a rare.
hut reponed, occurrence. We find that most known instances involve a group of
m ales en counterin g a female from a different group- of whos e child the y are very
unlikely to be the fathe r. The n, in a high1y aggressive state, the baby is wren ched
from the mo ther, and killed and eaten. The n th ere was the case of Passion and
Pom o a moth er-and -daughter pair who were believed to be responsible for the
deaths of ma ny nfant s in their own group at Combe, eatching the mother by sur-
p rise and killing and eating her child.
The differences between langur infant icide and chimpanzee infanti cide are as
str iking as the fact th at the grisly beha vior has been seen in both (and many ot her)
specics.
And what about humans? In our speces, most infantlcide is pe rpetrated by
the mo the r herself, or by someone acting on her behalf, for econo mi c or social
reason s (she cannot have a baby no w). And it is carrled out remorsefully. rath er
than aggressivly.
The devil, the old saying goes, is in the details. Langu r infanticide occurs
dur ing a male takeover: chimpanz ee infanticide is gene ralIy a group of males
attackin g a lone neighb oring femal e, except for the best-known episode, wh ich
involved female s att acking Jem ales in th eir own group, and culminates in cann i-
balism; and human infanticide is carried out ostensbly fo r th e mother's (or the
fam ily's) int erests.
Are these "the same"! Are these behaviors hornologous?
. Or are they fundame n tally dfferenr, to th e extent th at the m isJeading thing is
tha t we apply to all of the m the same label, "nfantcde"!
If there were a good answer, it would appear right here. But all we can do is use
thi s to iIIustrate the basic difficu lty in comparing the "same" behaviors across pri-
ma te species and in trying to relate them to hum an behavors, whi ch may be (at
least) superficialIy similar.
And yet a best -selJing popul ar book of science enjoins us to recog nize th ai
(.. . almong our darker qualtes, murder has nowbeen documented in innumer-
able animal species, genocide in wolves and chmps, rape in ducks and orang-
utans, and organized warfare and slave raids in ants (Diamond 1992. 170).
Is wha tever ch mps and wolvcs do really genoc de, or is it "gen ocde "! Do
orangutan s rape or do the y "rap e"! ls slavery in ants really basically the sam e as
what hap pened to Africans in the seventeenth centu ry. or is that just a metap hor,
Baboons in the Sixtes, Chmps in the Nnetles 155
an evoca tlve literary device? Th ese que stions are crucial for understandin g th e
evolutiona ry significance and rc1ationshi p of the se behaviors to th eir human
eounterp arts .
Th ls di cho tom y reflects the two basic kinds of mod els for using primate
behavior to tr y an d illum inate human behavior. On e focuse s on evolutionary
proxmity, and the nferen ce that behavio rs seen are homologous, and th us focuses
on th e ch mpanzec as the key to hu m an behavior. The othe r focuses on an eco -
logcally m ean ingful sim ilarity, and uses the baboon as a focus .
BABO ONS IN TH E SIX T IE S, CH IMPS IN T HE NINETIES
The babo on mo del was popular in the 1960s and noted th at baboons have second-
ar ily descend ed from the tr ees, ju st as early humans hado Being fairly c1os~ly
related, the baboon and human perh aps afforded an opportunity to show how hfe
on the groun d po sed problerns th at were answered in sim ilar ways by these.~iffer
ent prim ates. And perhaps those answered involved social patterns familiar to
Arne rican s in th e early 1960s an d th at were apparently replicated in baboons: th e
males fought, or at least competed, conspicuously- for resources, or femal es, or
just for sta tus in th e troo p. They were out at the forefron t defending the tro op
again st pre dators, whle protecting th e fem ales and offsl(ring. So pe rha ps, to a gen-
eration search ng for un ity instead of d ivisin, these paternalistic th emes of
babo on society echocd the com m on themes of a shared humanity.
And pe rh aps the only reason they did n't evolve into us is th at the baboon
m ales were satisfied being vegetarians, an d our males developed a tastc for m eat,
an d the skill lo hunt.
But the deeper the baboon s were exam ined, the more alien they appeared.
Yesothe male s fought, but th erc was a good rcason-they didn't grow up togcthcr
lil e the females did. Thc faet that m ale baboons transfer troops at adulthood, and
fema les do not, me ans th at th e adult fem ales are more strongly sociaUy bond ed,
having grown up to gether, th an the mal es ar e, having had to enter a new troop.
The females had a dominan ce hierarchy too . but it was m ore subtle: and it was a1so
mo re stable. Moreover, th e bab oons d id h unt occasionally.
So not only were the simil arities illusory, but so wcre th c supposed key
d fferen ces,
By the 1990s. the baboon as model for hum an evolution had given,way to a
m odel based on phylogenetic proximity: the ch impanzee. [ane GoodaIls famous
work at Gombe Stream Reserve in Tanzania, begin ning in 1960. had produced a
wealth of inform ation, mu ch of it visually do cum ented in rnagazines, televisi n
shows, and popu lar book s; and a steady strearn of scienti sts carne to work along
with he r.
Goodall's writings had always emphasized how nearly hum an th e chimpa n-
zees were; it is hard to look at ch impan zees, especially their facial expressions, and
not be struck by the ir similarity. The chi m pa nzees are m ale bon ded, and altho~gh
th erc are eompe titive plays for ind ividu al status, th e males ban d togethe r tnto

156 C H AP TER 8 A P"E S RU N A ROU ND NAKE D
coalitions and look for troubl e-perhaps to h unt , kill, and eat sorne colobus mon-
keys; or pe rh aps to patrol a territorial boundary, looking for an un familiar chim-
panzee who ma y have strayed on to their turf or to bump off a member of a
neighboring grou p. Parallcls rapidly began be drawn from those nasty, male-
bo nded apes to anything from human ln ncr-city gang war fare, to foorball games,
to primiti ve war; and mod ern genocide.
And because th ey sh ared our history until just a few mill ion years ago, we
might well be watchi ng ou r ancestors.
But on ce agai n. sorne circum sp ection is called foro In the first place, ch impan-
zees are the only apes with multimale grou ps and females with promi ne nt visual
sgnals of fertili ty. Clearly sorne key aspects of their social b ehavior, then, are very
likely lo be highly derived. And if those features are highly dertved, then they
pro bablyevolved in chimpanzees after we parted evolution ary ways with them -
so they may not be part of our own heritage at all. And in the sccond place, th eir
closest relatives, th e bon ob os, seem to be different in many interesti ng ways: mo re
peaceable, less mal e bo nded, less terr itor ial- maybe they are th e ones th at rcp re-
sent hum an ancestr y nstead Or perhaps we just have a very diverse arcay of
behavioral capa ctes in the genus Pan, whic h pred udes any easy infercnces about
th e origins of h uman behavior fro m th em. And of course, the giant peaccful
gor illa, usually foun d in sin glc-rnale groups, can 't be d ism issed so easily either.
LO OKING ELSEW HE RE FOR CLUES ABOUT
H UMA N EVOLUTI ON
The twenty-first century bri ngs with it a call to h igh er level of soph istication in
using nonh urnan primates to understand h um an evolut on an d behavior, No sin-
gle species will do ; th ey each have their own cvoJutionary h istor ies ano unique
adaptations. Instead of Iook ng at partic ular species as grand m odels by which to
un derstand hu mans, th e more mod er n reason ing wou ld focu s on pa rtic ular b o-
social traits in the nonhu m an primat es and see what th eir evolution ary carr etales
are. and then relate t to h um an evolution.
Th us, for example, sorne lemurs live in female-dom inant societies. Althou gh
there are no known matriarchies in the human spectes. there is considerable vari-
ation in th e kin ds and arnount of social po wer that worncn can wicld. Might
lemurs be able to shed so rne light on wh at It takes lo r un a matriarchy successfully!
O ne of our close st relarves, th e bono bo, engages in far m ore nonreproduc-
tive sexua lity then oth er prima tes do. They are also fema le honded and have very
low levels of aggre sson . Likewise, th e mu riqu i mo n key of Brazil has very low
Ieve1s of aggression. Might it have some thing to sho w us about the needs of a
pacifist socetyt
Of course, one n eed s to retain caution. A gover nment bureaucrat said in 1991
that h e tho ught that in n er-c ity ghetto es reminded him of rhesus monkey socety
becau sc they have "removed sorne of the civilizing cyolut ionary things thar we
h ave built up," ma king th em resemble "jungles,"Mixi ng up cu ltural an d biological
The Ape Mind 157
evolut ion, he d id n't seem even to realize th at ghettoes are an h istorical conse-
quence of urbanism, povert y, and social ma rginalzation, an d are th us very recent
in hum an history, an d consequ ent1y represent sorne of th e most "cvilized" places
on earth. After all, you can't be crime ridd en witho ut a pri or concept of crim e,
which implies th e existence of Iaw. You can'r h ave poverty with out mon ey an d
without vast inequality ofwealth. In othe r words, ghettoes are n ot .at aUlike jun -
gles, wh ich are metaphors for th e complete absen ce of civilization , not for its prod -
ucts and d iscontents!
T HE AP E MI ND
Ever since th ey be came familiar to scientists in th e eighteenth centu ry, the apes
were seen to b e very smart. How couId th ey not be, f th ey resemb led us physicalIy
in so m any ways?
Yet while they could b e tau ght many am azing tricks and behavcrs, they could
not be taught to speak. Was th is because they were too stupid ?
One way to tcll would be to distinguish bet ween speech (the act of pro duci ng
meaningful sounds) and language (the cog nttve, mental processes involved in
making sense of those sou nds). Since th ey could u nd erst an d m any things a person
said (even bett er than you r dog und erstands "Sit!"}, perhaps the y h ad the mental
equtprnent, bu t just lacked th e muscular and neu ral capabilities of spe aking. Th is
hypothesis was tested in the 1960s in a famous study by psychologists who taugh t
a ch impanzee n ame d Wash oe to com municate in Ame rican Sign Lan guage.
Shortly thereafter, othe r apes were taught to com mun icate th e sarne way, and still
others were tau ght to use custom ized comp uter keyb oards to commu nicate.
\Ve now kn ew th at th e apes couId use asp ects ofhuman lan guage to com mu-
nicate. But were th ey doin g mor e than a really sma rt dog with prehensile hand s
could do ? After all, it wasn't entirely clear th at the apes could combine more than
th ree signs, or th at they had m uch to say beyon d dern andi ng candy or a tickle, and
idemi fying th ings . In a well-controlled study, a ch impan zee named Nim Ch lmp-
sk;"gavc:: HUle evid enc e of linguistic capabilities, witho ut the prom ptin g and tran s-
lat ion that aceompan ied the accomp lshments of the other apes.
Th c widely repon ed stories of a gor illa named Koko and a bono bo nam ed
Kanzi are among the most fam iliar ape ntelligencc studies still procecdin g. Both
of them have been raised as virtual humans, and both seem to have developed
crude ling uisti c cap acitcs. Ths work.however, tends to downplay the scientific in
favor of the expe rient ial-r-just watch th em and you' Il see how human they are!
The problem is th at a puppy raised in a hu m an h ousehold becomes a family mem -
ber; b ecomes sensitive to th e destres, emo tional states, and voices of hu mans; an d
can be trai ned to do remarkab le thin gs. So are the minds of th ese apes essentiaUy
th ose of supersmart, well-tra ined dogs, or are th ey essentially those of very du mb
peop le]
Of cours e, as just ph rased, the d ichotorny is a ltttle absurd o Ever ybod y
ackn owlcdgcs that th e apes are biologically mu ch m ore closely related to hum ans
 158 CHAPTER B APE S RUN AROUND NAKED
than dogs are, and have central nervous systems very similar lo our own, and
bra ns one -thrd th e size of ours. But the dichotomy encapsulates the crucia l ssue
with regard to human evolution: Have humans evolved so rnething mentally tha t is
fundamentally diffe ren t from the capacit ies of other an ima ls, or are OUT mental
and linguistic capabilities shared in sorne rudimen tary forro by the apes?
Thi s turos out to be sornething tha t requi res carefully cont rollcd exper iments
to determine. lf for exampl e, you take a rh esus mo nkey, and paint a red dot on its
forchcad, th en place a m irror nearby, the rhesus monkey will reaet to its own
reflectio n as f were simpIy another mo nkey with a red do t on its foreh ead. It gives
no indication that the reflection is itself. A ch mpanzee, on th e other hand , usually
responds by touch ing the red dot (which it can onl y see in the m rror), appar ently
k.nowing tha t th e reflection s ind eed tsclf an d using th e m irr or to examine parts
th at it couId not otherwise see.
Al1 hu m ans can do th is by age three to four. But sorne apes never get it. What
thi s suggests is tha t whatever property the "mirror test" is testing-we can call it
self-consciousness-is polymorphic in the apcs, and may even have been lost in
sorne. This in turn suggests that sorne of our assumptions abo ut intelligence-that
it is a specles -speclflc tr ait, and self-evidently adapti vc-may be too simplistic.
It is also fairly clear th at the kind s of experiments des igned to test the linguis-
tic or mental capabilities of apes tell us next to nothing about how apes think or
cornm unicate whil e they are in the wld, just being apcs, The re is no evidence to
suggest tha t the y use anything like the words and sgns of human invention to
conduet th eir own affairs in the forest.
This raises an addition aI question: Wh at value do th ese experirnents have in
helping us understan d ap e life or ape th oug htt Wc learn from thern what th e apes
may be capable of under highly contrived circumstances, but we are left to field
pr imatologists to get at what th ey actually do. Wh at they actually do is of course
far less strikingly human than what they are able to do in hum an surrcun dngs
and with human invention s. Interestin gly, sorne of th e most cleverly designed
experiments, to d istinguish wheth er wh en solving a problem, chm panzees are
using a simple or complex algori thm , seem to show chimpanzees consistently
using a simp le onc.
CULTURE
Anthropology was to a large extent founded on the division bet ween th e group
traits that are biologicall y based and tho sc th at are so cia lIy lear ned - "race"
and "culture." Inde ed , that was th e distinction drawn by th e Brittsh anth ropologist
E. B. Tylor when he fir st populari zed th e conce p t of cult ure to the English-
speaking wo rld. as "that com pIex who le which inelu des knowledge, belief art ,
moraIs, cus tom, an d any ot her capabiliti es an d habits acquired by man as a
m cmber of soc lety;" In the hands of the Ge rm an -Ame rica n anth ropologist
Fra nz Boas, cult ure acquire d a slight ly d fferent usage, referring to the thn g-, wc
learn that unc onsciously shap e our perceptions and experiences. Tylors "culture" was
Conservation 159
something that all societies have to a greater or lesser exte nt, and can be
obscrved and tabul ated; Boas' "cultu res" are possess ed equalIy by all soctetes,
an d must be experienced and inte rp rete d to be understood .
One significant prope rty of culture is that it is learned, not nstnctive or
innate ; and conseque ntly; since d ifferen t people in different places learn differe nt
th ngs, those th ings come to characterize and differenti ate th e groups of people
from one another.
Appropriating the anthropological term, eth ologists (stu dents of anima l
behavior) began te de fine "cultu re" solely in terms ofits properties ofbeing leam ed
and locally specific. Consequently, the y bega n to identify "culture" outside of the
human species, most famously in chi mpa nzees, ora ngutans, and rnacaques. Th at
ntellgcnt , Iong-Ived. social creat ures would have learn ed local trad itions should
com e as no surprise to any student of human evolution.
Chimpanzees, for example, have characteristic greeung gestures , food prefer-
cnces, hunting styles, and tool use patterns, which differ from group to group.
Wh ile this is not "culture" in th e anthropological sense, it is certainly interestin g,
and a testimo ny to the intelligence of the chimpanzees and th e intensity of study
by scientists. The dr awback, however, is that it has given rise to a sterile debat e
over whethe r chirnpanzecs "heve" culture. They do as the word is used in ethology,
but not as the word is used in anthrop ology. . .
The sad thing is that argui ng abo ut whether chimps really have "culture" or
"language" obscure s the interes ting question, which s, Wh at do they;have? ,Cer-
tainly apes do not behave or com rnunica te as humans do, so whatever the d ffer -
ence between human and ape behavior and communication actually s, it must be
described in words, and th e words "language" and "cultu re" seem as good as any.
If we decide th at apes have both of the se, the n we must still come up with other
labels to describe what huma ns have.
CO NSERVATI O N
No apes are being imported from the wild for scientific research in th e Un ited
States any m ore, for they are all en dangered species- as are man y pro sirnians and
mo nkeys. Recent years have seen a grea t deal of interest in th e plight of e~dan
gered prim ates. Scient ific research was never rnuch of a th reat to th em (the blgge.st
scentfic thre at involved the dep letion of local populations of rhesus rnonkeys III
the 1950s as the polio vaccine was being developed)- rathe r, the threat has come
principalIy in the form of th e encroach mcnt of hum an societies around them ,
destroying the forests and natu ral hab itats of the primates, accompanied by human
diseases, illegal hunting or poachng for trophi es, and even th e hun ting of pri-
mate s as exotic food or "bush mear"
Since it is specifically the economic development of the human socetes t h~t
threatens th e apes, it is difficult to look someonc in th e ere and tell thern that thei r
own plight s less imp ortant th an that of th e apes. Th e solutions secm t~ He in
developing conservation programs tha t bring rcvenues into th e com mu ntty and
I
 160 C H A PT ER 8 APE S' RUN ARO UND NAKE6 References and Further Reading 161

gtve the lo cal peopIe an eco nomic in centive to co n serve the p rim at es. In Bw ind i, Mitan, J. C. 2009. Cooperation and competition in chimpa nzees: Curr ent understanding
in Ugan d a, a small tawn has developed n ear a group o f rare mountain gorillas, an d and future challenges. Evoutionary Anthropology 18:215-227. .
t h e cash fro m "eco-tou rism" is benefiting both th e people an d the gorillas. Palombit, R. A. 1999. lnfanticide and the evolutio n of pair bonds in nonhurnan pnmates.
A more radic al sa lu tion in volves arguing that th e n otion of "human rights" EvolutonaryAnthropology 7:117- 129. .
Pavelka, M. 1999. Pri mate gerontology. ln The Nonhuman Primates, cd. P. Dolh inow an d
shou ld be exten d ed to the great apes, endowing th em legally with the rig hts to lfe,
A. Fuentes, 20 -224. Mountain View,CA: Mayfield. .
lib erty, and freedom from torture. This position is ad vocated by the Great Ap c Povinell, D. 2000. Folk Physicsfor Apes: The Chimpanzees Theory oi How the World Works.
P roject , led by animal rights actlvs ts an d su pported by sorne p rirnatol ogists.
New York: Oxford University Press. .
O f co urse n obody is in favo r of to rt u ring o r en slaving epcs. so at a ver y fun damen- Pructz , J. and P. Bertolen 2007. Savanna chmpa nzees, Pan troglodytes verus, hunt with
ta l level, this is m er ely rhetorical. But it is undear just what the rh etoric might tools. Current Biolcgy 17:4 12-417. .
actually imply. Is, for example, a colony of ap es in azoo being dcnied their rights Ray, E. 1999. Social dominan ce in nonhuman primate s. In The Nonhuman Primates; ed.
to liberty? Could an ap e's right to life b e vio late d by anothe r ape, o r ca n it on ly p. Dolh inow and A. Fuentes. 206-210. Mountain View, CA: Mayficld.
be violated by a perso n? And what man n er of d iscomfor t to an ape co nstitu tes Rces.A. 2009. The Infanticide Controversy: Primatology and theArt ofFieldScience. Chicago,
to rt ure? IL: University of Chicago Press.
Perhaps the saddest part of th e Great Ape Projec t is th at , while resonant with Richard, A. F. 1985. Primates in Nature. New York: Freeman. .. ,
Sperling, S. 1991. Baboons with brtefcases: Pemnsm , functionalsm, and sodobiology m
sensitivityto th e welfare an d prcser vat ion oft he great ape s (oran gu tans, chimpan-
zees, and garillas), t cas ts a blind ey e to th e en d angered lesser apes-the gibbons the evolution of primate gender. Signs 17:1-27. .
Strier, K. B. 1994. The myth of the typcal prim ate. Yearbook o/ Physlcal Anthropology
o f So u theast Asia-and to th e man y ot he r p rosim ian and m on key sp ecies also
37:233- 271.
th reaten ed . Strum, S. C. and L. M. Pedigan, eds. 2003. Primate Encounters: Models of Science, Gendet;
P rim ate co nse rvation is one of the p ress ing issu es of our age - n ot on ly for th e al1d Society. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. . . . .
faet that we ar e dealing with sentient and emotionally co m plex creatures, more Sussman, R. W., James M. Cheverud, and Thad Q. Bartlett. 1994. Infant killng as an evolu-
sim ilar to ourselves than to any ot he r for ros of life -but also bec ause ofthe com- tionary strategy: Reality or myth? Evotutionary Anthropology 3:149~ 151:
plex en ta n gled issues of globalism, economic d evelopment, the rights and interest s de Waal, F. B. M., ed. 2002. Tree o/OriginoCambridge, MA: Harvard Unve rstty Press.
of in d igen o us pe op les an d soverelgn n ati ons. OCco u rse , a schola rly inte re st in Wallman, J. 1992. ApingLanguage. New York: Cambridge University ~ress. .
prim ate co nservation also emerges from be coming aware of the impoveri shmen t whten, A., J. Goodall, W. C. Mcfl rew,T. Nishida, V. Reynolds, Y. Sugyama, C. E. G. Tutln ,
to OUT understandng of ou r own ro ot s that would res u lt from the loss o f these R. W. wrangham, and C. Boesch. 1999. Cultu res in chmpanzees. ~a~ure 399:682-685.
spe cies. wrangham, R., and D. Peterson. 1996. Demonic Males: Apes and the Ongm.5 of Human Vio-
lence. Basta n, MA:Houghton Mfflln.
Wynnc, C. 2004. Do Animals Think? Princeton, NI : Princcton University Press.
REFEREN C ES AND FURTHER REA Dl NG
Corbey, R. 2005. The Metaphysics of Apes: Negotiating the Animal-Human Boundary. New
York: Cambridge University Press.
Di Flore, A. 2003. Molecular gcnetic approaches to the study of primate behavlor, social
organization. and reproduction. Yearbook of Physical Anthropology 46:62-99 .
Fossey, D. 1983. Gorilas in the t-st. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.
Fuente s, A. 1999. Variable social organization: What can looking at pri mate groups tell us
about the evolution of plasticity in primate societies? In The Nonhuman Primates, cd.
P. Dolh inow and A. Fuentes, 183- 188. Mountain View, CA: Mayfield.
Goodall, J. 1971. ln the Shadow ofMan. Boston: Houghton Miffln.
Goodall, J. 1986. The Chimpanzees o/ Gombe. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Hart, D. and R. Sussman. 200 5. Man the Hunted: Primates,Predaors, and Human Evolution.
New York: Westview Prcss.
Hausfater; G., and S. B. Hrdy, eds. 1984. 1nfanticide: Comparative and evolutionary p.erspec-
tives. New York: Aldine.
Marks, J. 2002. What Tt Means '[o Be 98% Chimpanzee. Berkeley: Unversity of Californ ia
Press. .

CHAPTER 9
r last is a reflexive act of self-preservation. Is the re some thing in between the ephem -
Being and Becoming
(On the Relevance of Humans
to Understanding Humans)
T HEME
By overcmphasizing th e sim ilarities between human and ape, we run the risk of
failing to appreciate the unique po sition of the human species in the natural arder.
which for humans is really a natura l-cultu ral arder. To und erstand th e cvoluton of
~ur species, we have to see th e ways in which we ha ve come to dffer from tbe apes
rn fundamental biological an d ecological ways.
H UM A N NATURE
One of the mo st contentious issues in the area of intersection am ong biology,
an thro~ology> and ph ilosophy Is that of human nature. 15 thcre something specal
and unique about us, some thing inn ate and unwavering, some thing that we each
p~s~e~s as a boon oc curse sim ply by vlrt ue of being h uman? Many aphor sms and
wtttlcism s have been penn ed about it through the ages, but the Darwinian Revolu-
tion of the late nineteenth cen tury mad e it an emp irical issue. Hum ans evolved by
natu ral processes from an ape ancestor, the genetic dfferen ces between us and the
living apes eomp rise th e basis of uni quely hum an attributes; and ou r extensive
shared ancestry w~th them compr ises the basis for un derstan ding th e biological
sub strate upon which our human features were inscribe d.
Of co ur se, that doesn't neccssarily help ident ify particul ar features of
human natu re. After all, any person th in king abou t the issue is not d oing so just
as a prod uct oEthe biological evolution of the ir spc ctes, but also as a m ember of
a national hi stor y, an econ omi c class, an ethnic tr ad ition, a gen der, and so forth.
Is it feasible to th ink th atwc can di sentangle wh at is hu man na ture from wha t is
the p roduct of social, cultu ral, and econom ic [orces on th e hi story of th e
thl nkerj
. It is hard , but in principie, we could - if we found regularities th at transcended
history, geography, class, tradition , and basic rationality. After all, we readily agree
162
Human Nature 163
th at speaking English, eating with a fork, going lo church, and do dging falling
bou lders are hardly human natu re. The first three are accidents of history, and the
eral and the tr ivial that we can ident ify as hu ma n natur e?
This is wh ere th ings get tr icky. To see the problem, we mu st rcturn to a
phil osophical di sli nct ion we dr ew in ch apt er 1: on tological versus ep istemologi -
cal issues. Certainly, evolution would dict ate th at any features that are hu m an
aut apom orphies-c-unlquely derived tr aits, or evolutio na ry novelti es specific to
th e h um an lin eage- must be human nature. And obviously a ho st of suc h fea-
tures rnust exist. But epistemo logically, how do we identify th em as such witho ut
mi stakin g them for the more parochial and historically shallow th ings we are so
familiar with in OUT day-to-day existence?
Perhaps wc couId focus on broad un iform ities in human thought and deed.
But broad uniform ities raise pro blem s. Let's say that we find 85% of humans do
something. Can we say it is human nature? If so, what does it me an about the 15%
ofpeople that do not? Are they thercby not hum an ? Or, if we decide th at both the
aet (what 85% do) and its op posite (wha t 15% do) are human nature, th en haven't
we simply made a tr ivial statemen t?
These issues are compo und cd by two add itiona l facts: demographic an d hs-
torlcal. The mo st widely spoken language in the world s Mandarin Chnese, spo -
ken by nearly a fifth of the human species. Is th at because it is deeply rooted in a
basic hum an nature to speak Mandarn Chinese, or because the re are so m any
peopIe in Asia tha t the number is simply a demograph ic aecid ent, rath er than a
manifestation of human nature? Alternativcly, we may observe th at about one-
third of the people in the world are Ch r stans. Is th at a baste fact ofh uman na tur e,
or rath er, just a conse quence of aggressive evangelism?
In the cases of Christianity and Mand arn Chinese, the answcrs are pretty
obvous. for a religion and a language are clearly acqu red d uring the cours e of
enes lite . But what about some thing ha zier, sueh as what featu res a per son find s
attra ctive in a sexual part ner i
Sorne scienti sts beieve th at t is hum an nature for a man to be attracted to a
woman with a 2:3 ratio of th e waist measurements to th e hip m easur ements. After
all, whe. . you show silhouettes of wome ns figures to roen all over the world , you
. find theru lo exp ress a preference for a 2:3 waist-to-hip ratio . A mor e critical
observcr notes th at a 2:3 waist-to -hip rati o s the glamorized figur e of Hollywood
starlets ("36- 24-36"), and wonders whether tha t bre ad male preferen ce is a facet of
human naturc or simply a reflcction of th e u niversal expos ure of men to th e mov-
ies. To test tha t hypothess, anthropo logists working with a short , stocky gro up of
peo ple known as the Matsgenka , living high in th e Peru vian Andes, asked them
the samc questions about their preferen ces in wom ens figures . And th ey found,
contrary to the un crit ieal assertions about human nature, that the Matsigenka
mcn p rcfcrred wome n shaped just like their women are shaped-c-and n01 like
Marilyu Mon roe! A similar study among th e tall, thin Hadza in East Africa found
a similar resulto
 164 C HAPTE R 9 4 BEI NG AND BEC OM IN G
Th us it seems th at th is "universal preference" is merely an expression of cul-
tural glo balization, not ofhu ma n evolution - for th e people least exposed to Hol -
lywood tastes ha ve pre ferences least like th e gIamorize d Holl ywood ideal.
T he re is a crucial cautionary tale underlying th is research, however. These
kin ds of critical experiments are becoming more and more difficult to perforrn , as
the eeono mic and so cial forc es enrneshed in American popular culture reaeh even
the m ost remote pe oples on eart h. Wh en everyone has been expo sed to th e sam e
cultura l information and value s, it wiII be impo ssibl e to te11 tho se bro ad uniformi -
ties that are th e result of be ing human from those regu larities tha t are the result of
living in a ho mogeneous society!
AHof whic h is not to say there is no such thing as human n atu re, of co urs e. If
we h ad the genes of a dog , we would go "woof woof" an d run on a11 fours. Our
own genes com pel us to Iearn to walk on two legs an d say ". .. blah blah blah
an thropo logy. . . ." And that Is the ro ot ofsomething very rea l, a bioJogically roo ted
hum an n ature. The pr obJem is epistcmological-figuring ou t what we can reliably
nfer abou t this human nature.
THE MOST FUNDAMENTAL HUMAN ADAPTATION :
BIPEDALISM
In th e early twentieth cen tury, it was undear which of th e major skeleta l differ-
en ces betwe en humans an d apes -e-b peda ltsm, redu ction of the canine teet h, an d
expansion ofthe br ain-came first. Sorne verslons ofthe evo lutionary story ha d all
th ree proceed ing at app roximately th e same rate; others had the brain leadi ng the
way, with a rem ote ancestor th at was an ape who becam e sma rter, and whose
dcscendant s then carne to walk ere ct and reduce their canines. We now think that
the very first of the th ree traits under discussion to ar ise in the ape lin eage was
biped alism -in other wo rds, there cxisted a distant ancestor with th e teeth of an
apc, and th e brain of an ap e, but walk.ing up right like a person o
It was once th ou ght tha t bipe dalism ara se very gradua lly and in crem entally.
with a long series of descendants sta ndi ng m ore and mo re erect. It is more likely,
however, that the in termediate postures are un stable , so bipedali sm is cssen tially a
binary switch. We see livi ng chim panzees walking upri gh t whilc carr ying th ngs,
for example. Presumably, the n, the sh ift to habitual bipeda lism began as a behav-
oral opt ion , wh ich was then faeilitated by th e spread of mutations that affected thc
gr owt h and modelng of bone under new sets of str esses caus ed by th e adoption of
the new postur e and locomotor hab its. The result lnvolved wide spread changes
th rough out the body tha t ser ve 10 diagn ose the bones of a terr estrial bpede ! ape
fro m an arboreal, quad r umanual ape o These ehanges are pri ncipa lly assocated
with the feer. Iegs, and pelvis now bear in g the fuIl weight of th e bod y.
- Let us cons der th ese differe nces fro m th e bottom up. Where an ape foot has
gra sping toes and ver )' flexible ankJes- essentially two more hands-a hu man foot
is red csigned no t so mu ch for grasping , bu t for bearing weight. The ankJc c r tarsal
The Most Fundamental Human Adaptation: Bipedalism 165 -
bo nes th ern selves ar e Iarge, and the ligam ent s bin ding th em are stron g, for ming a
rigid "arch," The metatarsal bo nes are straight and stout; the end of one of th em is
expan ded into a "hall;" the hallux oc big toe is aligned with the rest of the toes; a nd
its distal phalanx:is enlarged. An ape walking upri ght do es so with its kne es point-
ing outwards; a human does so with its kn ees facing forwa rds. Consequen tly, the
in ner par t of the kne e is larger in hum ans, bearing the body's weight to a mueh
great er extent; an d the ent ire joint is rotat ed inward, orienting the hl p, kn ce, and
ankl e in the sam e direction . If we look at th e shi n bone, or tibia, we find that it is
cons iderably lon ger in a human (reflect ing the human body proportons, whch
evolved a few million years after the acqu isition of the bipedal habit). Mo reover,
sin ce th is bo ne con nects th e knee and ankle, altho ugh its shape is very sim ilar to th e
ape's hom olog, the en ds of the bone are slightly differently or ien ted with respect to
one another. T his tw stng or "tors in" of the tibia he1ps to d istingu ish a biped al
creature on the basis ofth e relative orienta tions of the an kJe and kn ee. Lkewse, thc
medi al or inner portion of th e up pe r kn ee joint, th e d istal end of the fcm ur or thigh-
bone, is enlarged to help support th e bod y's weight. And th e relationship between
the kn ee and t he hip is alter ed by the inward orientation of th e knee. The hip socket
(or acet abu lum ) is larger and deeper, and th c hcad of th e femur; wh ich fits into t, is
largcr and rounder as well, T he neck of th e femu r is also thicker in th e hu man . T he
pelvis itself assumes a bowI shap e, with the blade of th e ~ium becomi ng mo re sho rt
and broad . The spinal colum n ha s an extr a curve in th e lum bar (Iower) rego n,
which serves to keep an already arch ed ba ckb one balanced vertically. Th is reorient s
th e human sacru m , just aboy e the coc cyx: or tatlbo ne, which no w lies in front of th e
hip socket rather th an beh ind it. The rib cage is now positio ned fully in fro nt of the
vertebral column, rath er th an dangling down at all from it. The rib cage assumes a
more barrel-Iike form, rather than the con ical sha pe it takes in apes.
Moreovcr, since tbe human head sit s atop th e sp nal colum n , ra ther than sus-
pended som ewhat in front of it, we find sma ller spinous processes on the hu m an
cervical verte brae , for the attachme nt of smaller nuc ha l mu sdes. And th e fora me n
ma gnum (Latn for "big ha le"), whe re the sp ina l cord enters the skul l, is located
more cent rally. as are the occipital co ndyles , which balance th e head on the first
cervical vertebra, or atla s. FinalIy, we can co mpare the front limbs. The ap e's are
lon ger, esp ecialIy th e forea rms. T he hu man ha n d has a longer th um b an d relatively
shorter othc r flngers. whic h are thi nner and str aighter than th ose of th e ape. Of
cour se, where apes suppo rt them selves on the groun d wit h their fingers flexed, the
hu man ha nd is no t a wcight-b earing part ofthe body, and itself has been refash -
ioned for increased dexterity.
Why Be Bipe dal r
OIJe of th e most vering questions in the study of huma n evolution is what
pro m pted th e assump tion o an up rig ht posture and a strid ing gait. Given th at ou r
whole skeleto n h ad to be remodelcd to accommodate the h abt, and th at it app ears
in the fossil record most of the other rec ogn izable d istin ction s of ou r lineage, it is
clear1y fundamental to human ex istence an d to understa n ding human origins. So
 166 C HA PTE R 9 . BEI N G AND BEC OMI NG
why is it th ere? After all, it is n ot a terribly efficient way of getti ng aro un d. Being
biped aI seems to have meant th ar now ou r ances tors couId be outrun by pretty
much any ani m aIs they en counte red.
Decades ago, sorne biologists explained the origin of bipedalism as "having
fr.eed up th e h an ds for tool-use. The problem is that bp edalsrn precedes rccog-
mzable to ol use by up to five mill ion years, so it is hard to imagine ho w th e tra it
cou ld have hun g aro un d for so long before tinalIy becomi ng useful. Obviously,
sinc e evolutio n ha s no foresght, th e trait wouId have had to be helpful im medi-
ately to rem ain ; jf it made Its bearers less effccnt at movi ng about, t would pre-
suma bly be elimin ated by natura l selection, unl ess th e costs associat cd with th e
trait were outweigh ed by sorne oth er h dden benefit.
Wh at might that ben efit h ave been Possibly it was th e ability to carry th ings
in on e's arms over fairly lengthy d istanccs. Alternatively, it migh t h ave been just a
good way to get from one focd source to anoth er in an environment in which
forests were receding an d were becoming separate d by inc reasingly large tra cts of
flat plains or savannas.
Perhaps th e oddest suggestion is that bipedalism arose as an adaptation ini-
tially for wad ing or swimm ing, rath er than for walking and ru nn ing. This "aquatc
ap e hypothesis" p osits the buoyan t p rop er ties of water as a tr ansformative force on
the gene p ool, reorienting the center of gravity, and ob liging our ance stors to be
more vertical (to keep th eir heads up and avoid drow ning) than their land lubbing
apc cousins. Th is th eor y also Purpor ts to account for othe r seemingly disparate
facts: the subc utan eou s fat layer of hum ans (ana logou s to blubber ?); our lack of
body hair; and th e ease with which h um ans take to th e water, in contrast to apes.
But th is union of seemingly rand om facts is also th e th eor ys weakness . Why
wouId an aquatic hfe lead us to develop a layer of blubbe r like many aquatc mam-
m aIs, but not lead our nostrils to migrare upward, like so many aqua tic manun als?
Why would we lose our b od y ha ir like many m arine m ammals, yet retain hair in
th e smel1iest pa rts of the body- in an environ rnent whe re olfactory cues would be
useIess?
, An d fina lly, why would we have gaine d so many sweat gIands in our skin,
m akin g it our major mo de of heat dissip ation- un like ou r p antng, h airy ances-
to rs? After all, what use is evapcrative sweating in the water?
Th e aqua tic ape hypothesis, in pullin g toge ther diverse facts and arb it rarily
ign oring othe r related enes, actually ra ises more questions tha n it resolves. Con-
seq uen tly, It is not a part icularly well-regard ed idea, because the re i,~ not mu ch
th at scientsts can do with it. Thi s h ighlights on ce agan the cru cial difference
betwe en ontolo gy and epistem ology [chapt er 2) in und erstanding scienc e. Whilc
the aqu atic ape hypot hesis may be true, th ere Is little in the way of data thar can be
collected in order to prove it likely, After ali, 1I0es finding fossil ancestors near
m arin e paleo envronments (and in th e 19805, a do lph in's rb from an East Afri-
can site callcd Sahabi was tra nsie ntly rnistaken for an ancestral apes clavicle!)
m ean tha t th ey were adap ting aq uatic ally, or simp ly tha t they needcd a reliabie
so urce of water to survive? Any feat ure that can plau sibly be Jinked to a watery
The Second Fundamental Human Adaptation: The Teeth 167
orig in will be invoked b)' its advocates, and any feature that can't be linked to su ch
an orign, but ought to be, will be conven iently ignored. It is simply an interesting
story. .
Ultimately; we are faced with being able to describe th e anatomica l cha nges
assocated with habitual bip edalism far mo re readily th an we can explaln th em . In
oth er wor ds, the mor e reliable scientific inference concerns what h appen ed and
how it h appen ed, bu t not why it happene d.
Even so, anot her controversial area nvolves the irnmed iate subs trate upon
wh ich the biped al habit was founded. How was the imm ediate bipedal an cesto r
gett ing around ?: On its forelimbs and knu ckles, like present- day gorillas an d
chimpanzees- a very specialzed way of locomoting in its own right?; Or rather
more like an or angut an, perhaps a more generalized ape-who is on the gro un d
on ly very rarely, and then shambles abou t, bearing its weght on the tists rath er
th an specifically 011 the knu ckles?
What is cIear is that divergin g from the apes by becoming bipedal- for wh at-
ever reason-had long-term conseq uences. One consequencc is th at our own
ancesto rs are far m ore plentiful in the fossil record than th eir conte mporary ape
cousins. Th is is m ost casly explain ed by a movement from forested environments
to drter, warm er ones, which favor th e preser vatio n of fossils. The othe r conse-
quence is that indeed it pe rmi tted our ances tors to explore th e po ssibilitics in
exploi ting the environ ment technologically, th rough th e more pe rsistent use of
tools th at living ch imp anzees use sporad ically now- and presumably tha t our dis-
tant pre-b pedal anc estors used sporadlcally as well.
THE SECOND FUNDAM ENTAL H UMAN ADAPTATl ON:
T HE T EETH
When you compa re the teet h of a hu m an and an ape, you are stru ck princip aIIyby
ene featu re: the size of the can ine teeth. No t only are th e cani nes larger in the ape's
mo uth, bu t they produce other structura l consequen ces as well. Th e ape's canines
must interlock for the jaws to close, wh ich mean s th ere must be a space (d iastema)
in which th e upp cr teeth can sit when the jaws are shut. Further, the apes first
lower premo lar tself s shaped very d ifferently from its human homolog. A hum an
first lower prem olar has two cusps of about equal size: hen ce, your dentist refers 10
it as a "b cuspd ' By contrast, the sam e tooth in an ape has cusps of ver y unequal
size (a sectorial premolar), and the upper can ine sharpe ns itself against th e Iarger
on e. Furth er, th e large cani no teeth com e at the corn ers of an epe's m outh, followed
by chew ing tee th p ositioned in near1y parallel rows . Havin g much smaller can ines,
the human toot h row is far less squared off, an d generally forms a simple sem i-
circle. Because th e ape's large canines interlock. it is hard er for an ape to chew in a
sde-to- sde mo tion; consequcntly, the patter n of wear on an apes tccth is quite
d ifferent from that found on huma n teeth . And finalIy, although the occlusal
(chewing) surfac cs of the molar teeth are qu ite similar between a hum an and ape,
th e cross -sectional thickness of the ena mel varies qu ite consid erably. Hum ans
 168 C HA PTE R 9 BE ING AN D BEC O M I N G
have th ick enamel, chimpanze es and gorillas have thin enamel, an d ora ngu tans
h ave enarnel of me dium thickness.
Wby Reduce the Can nesf
Not on ly do th e ap es have stout, proj ecting ca nine teet h, but those teeth are sexu-
ally d imorphic as well. Males m ay have can in e tecth twice th e size of a fcmales ,
which tcnds to coincide with a sexua l d imorphism in body mass as well. A male
ap e is bigger, and also h as bigger can ine teeth, th an a fema le apeoTh e redu ction in
canine too th slze and ts lack of sexual dimo rphism seems to have arisen between
4 and 5 m illion yea rs ago in the human fam ily.
But why should males and fema les be so different in th eir cann e teeth at all!
The exp lanation seems to lie in the auxiliary theory of Charles Da rwin's called
"sexua l selecton," Whe re natur al selection invoked competition for su rvival and
reprod uctio n as an eng ine to generate adaptive differen ces berween popu lations,
sexual selection invo kes a dfferen t kind of cornpetition-for access to m ates- as
an engine to gen erate differen ces between males an d females, or sexual dimo r-
ph ism . Here, th rou gh sorne comhination of mal e display and female choice, the
m ales with th e m ore promi ne nt app aratus - from a peacocks tail to a gorilla's
canines-are favored by a bias in reprod uctive opportun ities; and as a result, sub-
seque nt generations tend to exaggerate such dimorphic appea rances.
Am ong th e apes, th e gibbons are uni que in h aving little obvious com petition
for mates among the m ales- as they Iive in pair-bonded gro ups-and ma les and
fcmalcs h ave long. slender canine s of the same size and have abou t the sam e body
mass. Hu mans, h owever; eme rged from a larger- bodied stoc k. allied to the orang-
ut an s, gonllas, and chimp anzees, in each of wh om the males are larger an d have
large, stout canines.
Most likely, th en, the reduction ofh um an sexu al dimorph ism in canine tooth
size is related to a reduction in th e kind of comp etition for access to ma tes th at
characterizes other great apes. What social ch anges m ight have resulted in such a
Iesscn ing of cornpe tition? Perha ps the multifaceted and un iversal cultural nstitu-
tion of marri age, whic h generally bin ds th e families of a male and fem ale together
in a long-term eornmitment, was on e such social changc. Another m ight be the
fashion in which such comp etition was displayed -while ph ysical features and
p rowess characterizes th e bul k of m ale-m aJe cornpetition in the ap- s. the ancestors
of huma ns carne to play out such competition in less biological, an d more sym-
bolle. ways. By inventing such things as prcstge, status, wealth, manners, charro,
flattery, a goo d fam ily, and love, hu m an ancestors broadened thc att ributes that
would Influence a female's choice of m ates. The net cffect would b ave been to
reduce th e selection for physical att ributes 00 wh ich so much of pri mate sexual
dimor ph ism is ba sed.
Indeed, while human majes rcm ain at least sorn e 25% larga than females 0 0
th e average (a figu re often exaggerated by cultural values th at glamori ze beefy he-
men and waflsh fash ion models), we are also sexua llydimo rphic for other features
th at have no p aral1el in the other primates . This would inelude facial hair, body
The Third Fundamen tal l luman Adaptaton: The Brain 169
hair, body com position (proportions offat and rnuscle), and the expansion of spe-
cifc body parts. notably the breasts and penis. Presumably sorne othe~ aspect~ of
sexual selection carne into play to produce these patterns of sexual dmorphism
unique amo ng th e primates.
There are, of cour se, also th ings we call beauty and sexiness-ebut th ey are loo
locally spec ific, cultu rally dcterm ined, and temporally tr ansient to ~e of evolutlon-
ary sgn lfican ce. Nor s there any eviden ce th at unhandsom e or unsexy peop lc
consisten tly reproduce erry less successfu lly anywh ere. And finally th ere is the
possibility that can ine reduction in both sexes was needed to accompany the evo-
lution of specch, and had little o r not h ing to do wit h sexual selection at all.
T H E T H IRD FUND AM ENTAL H UM AN ADA PTATI ON :
T H E BRAIN
Th e oth er crucial d fference Hes in the size of th e cranium and its conte nts .
Wherea s th e br ain of a huma n contains, on the average, abo ut 1,500 cubtc centi-
meters of vc lum e, an ape wou ld be conside red wel1 endow ed with only a thi rd uf
th at. Mos t of tha t growth ha s occurred in the cerebrum, superimposing a grow th
of additional neo cor tex upon the more "primitive" part s of th e brain. Indeed, even
the dfference in volurne may underestim ate just how differe nt the brains of
human and ape have become, for the hu man neocor tex s also hig hly folded , or
convoluted , wh ieh exposes a larger number of its cells to the surface of th e organ.
In addit ion to growth in size or foldlng, eertain parts of the brain are mo re
expanded tha n oth ers. Thus, th e evolution of the human brain has seen a part icular
expansion ofthe p arietal and temporal lobes (on th e sides), relativc to th~ front~l
and occipit al lobes. And fu rthe r, the hum an br ain is detectably asym metnc; but If
such corr esponding asymmctri es exist in the brain of an ape, th cy are at bcst subt1c.
Of course, th e most ohvious correlatcs of bra in grawth are left in the archaeo-
logcal, rather than in the paleontological, record- namely, 10 0 15 and th e techn o-
logical produc ts of culture. As the brain inc reased in size, so did intelligen c~. a~d
along with that carne technological complexity. However, mo st cultural evolutlon In
our species has only occurred in the last 10,000 years, long after the first appearan~e
of modero p eo;-le. This highlights a paradox of th e relation ship hetween the bram
and the intellect: \""c tend to infer a relationship between brain size an d inteUect,
as judged by the increasi ng complexity of cultural form s, in the early evolution of
the genus Horno, from abou t 2.5 MYA(m illion years ago) to abou t 50,000 years ago.
But once m od ero pcople had settled in, their cultural forros seem to h ave evolved
independ ently of ch anges in elther brain size or intelligence. .. .
Th is is a pr incip al reason why an th ropologists gen erally disdain the infer-
ence of intellectu al d iffer en ces fro m cran iometr ic di ffcrences amo ng mod ero
people: Anat omi cally mode ro h umans appear in the fossl reco rd close to 200,000
years ago, but leave n o tr aces of b ein g culturally mo dero for mo re ?~er two-
thi rd s of that span. But once those traces begin to appear, th ey change rapdly and
 170 C HA PTER 9 BE1NG AN D BECOM I NG
progressiveJy. Culture, as anthropologists have long noted, now evolves indep en-
dently of people-it has beeome a "super-organsm"
Why Be Big Brained?
Follm-ving the preeep ts of th e elghteenth-century's "Enlighte nment," the ear liest
mo dern scho lars to speculate on the origin of the most obvious en dowment of our
species-our enla rged brain- saw it as an organ of rational ity. If the brain was the
center of rational th ought, which t obviously was, then it followcd tha t humans
were the mos t ration al species around, an d the forces that m ade us hum an must
have emph asized our powers of problcm solving.
Two lines ofevdence stood in the way of ths hypothesis, howcver. In th e first
place, hum an s don't have thc biggest brans ou t there . As anthropologist Matt
Cart mill notes, elepha nts and whales have Iarger brai ns t han we do, so it couldn't
be just raw size that m akes our brains so uni que. Perhaps, as scholars sough t a way
to make us pee rlcss among the world's brains, it wasn't just th e size, but the size in
relation to the body weight th at matt ers. But once agan, hu mans still don't come
out 0 0 top , for sma ll-bo died mammals (Ike mie e) have large brains in prop ortion
to their bo dy weight. Obviously we are smar t, and obvious ly we have large brains,
but there doesn't seem to be a simple algorithm explaining th at relationship.
The second line of evidence carne with the development of th e field of psy-
chology. The brain isn't just an organ of problem solvng, or rat ionality. After all,
hum ans alsc have the most extensively irrational thoughts we kn ow of. Whethe r it
is in d ream ing of a better Hfe, praying to invisible powers, erying over fictitious
events, or just basic Insec urities and phoblas, hu mans have far more irratio nal
thoughts than othe r kinds of animals too, also a product of our large brain. And
since hu m an histor y shows qu ite well that peopIe can be very h ighly motivat ed by
those irrational thou ghts, it becomes difficu lt to argue th at they would have been
Jess of an impetus in our evolution tb an th e rational thoughts are.
And once we start confronting the othe r fun ctions ofthe hum an brain beyond
rationality, we realize that the brain is preoccupied with ot her funetions. One
importan t funct on Is, of cou rse, language. Wc don't know precisely whe n recog-
nizable language em erged . but we see at best ru dimentary homologs in our closest
relatives, the apes. The em ergence oflanguage required the mental eapabili ties 10
store large vocabular ies, an d to combine them into grarnmaticalIy sensible groups
of words aceording to specific r ules, to reeognize appropriate sounds and state-
ments, an d distinguish them from inapp ropri ate ones .
More th an that, th e very faet of opening up a new an d power ful medi um uf
commun ication raised a host of problems, since for every tr ue statement that
eould now be commu nicated lingui stically, the re were ma ny mo re false state-
ments that eould be com mun icated jus t as eastly Certainly th ere had to be a pre-
mtum plaeed 0 0 the eogn itive ability to distinguish truths from lies or from mere
Ignorance. Consi der, by way of analogy, th e developm enr of the Intern et- also a
ncw and powerfuI means of communication . As we sean the Int ern et for useful
The Third Fundamental Human Adaptation:The Brain 171
nformaton, we are faced with unwanted spam, pop-ups, viruses, and the pro pa
ganda, advertisements, an d simple falsehoods tha t m isrepresent themselves as
infor mation . Consequent1y, we are obliged to develop softwa re and high degrees
of d iseernment to protect our computers (an d our minds) . Qu ite poss tbly, thi s is
tech nologically replicating the biological pressures that aros e in response to the
initial develop ment oflanguage itself.
A chimpanzee has to make strategic decisions abo ut whom to be allied with
in a specific situatio n. But it doesn'thave to decide which of two or three individu-
als who say "trus t me.Tm your real friend" is telling th e truth. Nevertheless, as
soon as language evolved, its possessors wouId have had to do just that-which
would have placed a strong prem ium on developing the eognitive appa ratus to
make sensc of the volume of informatio n an d mi sinforma tion coming in.
Other prominent seenarios for the evoluti on of human braniness attempt to
relate the growt h of ntelligence to thc ability to m anipulate others strategically in
a complex ne twork of prim ate social relatio ns ("Machiavellian intelligence"); or to
a feedback loo p th at began with th e inten sive exploitatio n of a new food souree
and pro curement strategy- meat and tooIs. Obviously, th ese are not at all mutu -
allyexclusive.
Social and Life-History Novelties
Perhap s the mo st far-rea ching un iqueness of the h uman condition is also
exceedi ngly subtle, and involves a slowdow n of our rate of matur ation. A four-
year-oId ch impa nzee, whlle not fully ma ture, is nevertheless able to ta ke care of
itself, and while it still han gs around its m othe r, it eould survive without her. Its
brain is as big as it is gong to get. A n ne-yeer-cld chimpa n zee is sexuaHy matu re,
socia lly m atu re, and nearly full grown, and long -sin ee cu t offfrom its apc apro n
srrngs.
A human child, however, is nowhere near as mature. A four -year-old's b rain is
still growing. and th e ch ild is still entirely dependent on adults for its surviva l. A
nne -year-old human is ncithcr sexually nor socially ma tur e, and still far from
fulIy grown. Obviou sly somewhere in human cvolution there has been a signifi-
can t extensin of the perio d of dependency, effected by slowing down the rate of
maturity, an d nearly doubling the time th at youn g hu ma ns have to learn to com-
municate, to adapt to their surroundings, and to be a suceessful participant in a
social group.
What might have eaused this delay of maturation? Perh aps it was the erner-
gence of this new way to cornmunicate, both irnrnensely powerful and also highly
comp lex, and inciden tally also requiring a long time to m aster.
Of greater sign ificance, however, were th e consequene es of pro longing this
ehild hoo d. A ch impanzee genera lly gives birth without assistance; a hum an gene r-
ally canno t. Th e hum an infanr's head is so large th at it can only pass through the
birth canal by rot atin g its body. and having the skull bones be soft and moveble.
Needlcss to say, it seems to be a far more painfu l experienee for a hum an moth er
th an for a chmp anzce mo the r. Moreover, the youn g infa nt - hum an oc ape-is
 172 CHAPTER 9 BEING AND BECOM ING
very depe ndent on its mo ther for everything, pa ramount among them being nutri-
tion and protection.
A mother ape has stopped nursing her first offspring by the time it is four
years old, and she is read y to have another. The four-year-old is still relian t, but is
able to fend for itself. A h uman m other, however, has an exeeedingly less capable
four-year-old chld, an d f she has anot her, she will be saddled with not one, but
with two, effectively helpless tykes. Their survival (th e mother and offspring) will
effeetively depend on their ability to secure sorne kind of reliable assistanee in
provisioning them . This assistance can come from two principal sources.
Th e first sou ree would be the young moth er's own m other; or older relatives.
In ad dition to extend ing the period of juvenil ity, hu mans also have extended the
fulllife spa n, compared to apes. A fort y-five-year-ol d ape is nearing th e en d of
its life: a hum an at th at agc still has a ways to go. But the end of child -bearing
yea rs is rou ghl y the sam e in bo th species . What th at mea ns is that a ch impanzee
female is essent ialIy giving birth to offspring u ntil she he rself dies; but a human
fem ale is facing a couple of decades of Ife without fertili ty - postmenop au sal.
If she is no longe r having ehildren of her own, yet is still ph ysically competent,
sh e is an obvious soure e of assistance for her own dau ghter 's offsp ring. Tht s
"gra ndmothe r hypo thesis'' mi ght help explain the surv ival of a spce ies th at has
enc um bered its ad ult fcma les with far greater burdens tban its zoological rela-
tives mu st bea r.
A sccond source of assistance would be from the adult ma les. An adult male
chimpanzee has littl e int erest in helping out a female with an Infant: ordinarily he
s little more than passively tolerant. Of course, when she becomes fertle , he
k.nows it, and he becom es far mo re solicitous ofher atten tion. A h uman m ale, on
the other han d, has far less of an idea when the fema le is fertlle, so there is no
radical change in the behavors of men an d women at that time. Not only th at, but
with her enlarged breasrs. the hu man fem ale visually seems to look as f shc might
be lactating at any given time, and wo uld the reforc be infert ile. Since the male has
few cues as to the female's actual reproductive state, h is reprod uctive/evolutionary
interests rnigh t best be served by bonding to par ticu lar fem ales over a lon g tcrm
and thus hopefully en sur ing that any offspring she bea rs are h is.
We thus see a pcssible origin for the ancient, universal hum an institu tion of
marria ge-ethn ographically diverse in its expressions, but arguably thc pri mor-
dial result of an anc ient conve rgen ce of interests, for the repr od uction of th e male
and survival of the female an d he r p rogeny.
Th is need on the part ofearIy hom inid mot hers, [oc greate r assistancc in child
reari ng th an modero apes, has an int eresting behavioral con seque nce, ncred by
Sarah Blaffer Hrdy. Human mothers are simply more toleran t ofother people han -
dling their offspri ng than, say. chimpanzee mothers are. No on e but th e m other
holds a chimp baby, an d any attempt to do so is gree ted with a th reat by the
mother. But all kinds of people handie a hum an baby: fathers, gra ndparent s,
in -laws, doctors and nurses, nan ni es, wet nurses, and even other rclatives and
frends. Th s matern al mellowness, combined with the ma ter ial asssrcnce offercd
Physiological and Sexual Novelties 173
by po streproductive women and possible husband s, may have ultimately permit-
ted the success of the hu man species.
P H YSIO LOGICAL AND SEXUAL NOV ELTIES
Sorne physiologica l oddi ties of the hum an species appea r early on and pe rsist
throughout life. Ou r prom inen t eye wbites. or optic sclera, seern to com municate
aspects of our social or emct onal stat es. Psychologi sts have recently foun d that
dogs are better at foIlowing a humans gaze than chimpanzees are: thc implication
is th at we have selectively bred dogs to be sensitive to th e kinds of facial eues th at
we evolved after diverging from the apes.
O ur skln , with the same density of hair follicles as th c apes, but whch yield
only thin small wisps of ha r, is also conspicuous. Within it lie copious sweat
glands, which help us dissipate heat (and wouldn't be nea rly as effective on a hairy
body, fo r the ha ir trap s moisture rathe r tha n allowing it to evaporate). Possibly the
need for a new mo de of heat red uction aro se when the neuromusculature of th e
mouth and tongue began to get remode led as language deveIoped, and were no
longer much good for panting. On the other hand, our conti nuously growing hair
on the head also has no paral1e1 in th e apes: without sorne form of groo ming (cut-
a
tmg, tyng, brus hing) it would obscur e our vsion and be real nui sance. It would
seem that ou r head hair would have had tocoevolve with th e cultural mecha nism s
of dealing with ir.
Humans also have a suite of odd features tha t appea r at puberty. Beginning
with a dramatic inerease in the rate of growth (kn own as the adoIescent growth
spurt) in the young teenager, the physieal transition from juvenile to adult is
marked by a series ofch anges that diverge markedly from the apes.
Alth ough menstru ation is known thro ughout th c Cata rrhini, the hum an
female, as noted earlier, develops a layer of subcutaneous fat behind th e nipples
and on the hips and buttocks. While highly variable in huma ns, it marks a depar-
ture from the condi tion of adu lt female ape s. In parallcl, and begnn ng slightly
later, bu t extendi ng over a longer period of tim e, the human male develops a pen-
dulou s peni s, ad ds muscle ma ss, and begin s to grow a beard. The hair 00 the body
grows, but more so in the genital and armpit region s, an d more so in men than in
wornen. Again, th esc are all variable tr aits aeross the spcccs. and are eommonly
augm ent ed or altered culturalJy because of the symbolic meaning they carry.
Symb olic meanings notwithstanding, th e evolution of breasts has attracted
considerable attention . The bre asts of an ape fem ale are only enlarged when she s
nursng, and is thus infertile. She is also not at all inter ested in sex, and neither are
the resid ent males. The nursing mother is sending a clear signal about her fertility
statu s-not fertilc!-and since the apes gene rally ma te only when the fem ales are
femle, the ma les don't take too mu ch sexua l interest in her, But suppose fema les
had permane ntly enla rged breas ts, whether or not they were fert ile? Then the
males would have far less inform ation abou t the fer tility status of th e females.
Ind eed , that loss ofreliabte inform ation abo ut the fertility status of fem ales seerns
174 CH APT ER 9 BEING AND BECOM ING
to be a prominent feature of huma n evolut ion, and may be related in a straightfor-
ward fashion to th e decoupling of sexuality from fertility th at cha racterizes human
sexual activity, and perhaps as well to th e emerging cultural fashions in which
humans com pete for mates. unlike apes.
Of course there s also continuity with th e other pri mates in some ways. Tite
fact that maturation is aceompanied by physical growth, even if not in an obvious
sp urt, and conspcuous cha nges in vocalizations and comp lexin, are also charac-
teri stic of the chimpanzee.
WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO MAKE A SCE NARIO
OF HUMAN EVqLUTION VALUABLE?
Obviously the re is much we do not yet u nd erstand in the histor y of th e human
species and its divergence from the ape ancestor. And just as obviously there are
m any poss ible explanat ions, or scena rios, for th e emergence of these hu man fea-
tu res.
And yet, although th ey are all unver ifiable, they are not a11 equal. We use sev-
era l ru les of thumb for de ciding upon wh ich kind s ofscena rios to favor. For exam-
pie. we glve little credence to a scenario th at has extraterrestrials coming in and
do ing genettc mo difications on apes. Why not ? First of al], th ere is no evidenc e of
such a visitation; and second, th e fossil record shows the gradual emergence of
hum an skeletal features over th e last several million years, which is not wh at you
would expect from a genetic inter vention .
An oth er rul e of thumb is that any explanat ion mu st be consistent with the
kn own biology of the apes and humans. The "naked ape" th eory, popularized in
the 1960s, had front -to -front sex as th e great causal agent in human ancestry (It
was, after all, th e sixtiesl}, but bon obos and oran gutans havc front-to -front sex,
and hu mans are, frankly, more dverse in th e spectr um of their sexual activities
than the theory gave them cred it foro
Anot her general rule of thumb s th at single grand theo ries are unlikely to
accou nt for as much as they pu rport. Hu man history is too compIex and too long,
and there are too many divergent lineages to be explicable und er a single grand
u mbrella. We have already dismissed th e aqu atic ape hypoth esis as an overarching
explana ton for human evolution, although it is certai nly conceivable th at sorne
part of it is true.
SimiJarly, sorne sch olars have promoted th e idea tha t we are "just" apes whose
d evelopm ent has been gene rally retarded , so th at we are for all intents and pur-
poses Iike veryyoung apes. Again, there may be a gra n of truth in the recognton
th at ape infants have small vert ical faces and relatively large. rounded skulls, how-
ever, detailed stu dies of the anatomy of hu man s an d apes show s th at for every trait
in which hurnans look like baby apes. th ere is another for which we look like geri-
atric ap es. In other words. Hke the "aqua tc ape" scenarto, th is th eory picks the da~a
that seem to support it, and conveniently ignores th e da ta that doo't. The truth 10
th is theory is that it probably has gotten to the core of a m echan ism by which
Cultural Evolution 175
anatom ical evolution has occurred in our linea ge- hy changes in the relative rates
of growth of different body parts-bul still doesn't tell us the reason thal the rela-
tionshi p between th e body part s needed changing.
CULTURAL EVOLUTION
Certa inly the most zooIogically unique aspect of th e human species is the fact that
we have expa nded all over the eart h. adapted to its harshest clirnates, and still show
no signs of declining. In other words, our adaptation works rem arkably well.
Ind eed, the on ly species that could be considered comparably successful are those
th at adapt by following us arou nd : such as dogs, rats, and the HIV virus.
But our present mode of adaptation Ieaves no paleonto logical eviden ce. It
leaves archaeological evdence the only thing the com paratve ana torny of the pri-
mates can help to ten you abou t it is th at hum ans have gone from the Stone Age to
the computer age with no apparent cha nge in anatorny. The refore, ana torny, it
seems, is largcly irr elevant to the study of cultural evolution . It is obviously rele-
vant to the study of cultural origins, for th is seems to be predica ted upon achieving
a certain brain size and conformation, and the ma nual dexterity to m atch. But
once it arose, cult ure seem ed to take off in an cvolut onary mode all its own, un re-
lated to the anat omy oc to the body that produ ced It: when we track th e evolut ion
of culture, we are studying ar tfacts, not bo dy parts.
Culture couId consequently be regard ed as having an existence outside th e
body (an "extra-so rnatc" existen ce), evolving by its own me ans, at its own pace,
and in form s an d dir ections not predictable from biological data. It marks th e
transformation of are ecology into hum an economy, and creates an environm en t
of its own to which the hu man species and the human body itself mu st ultimately
ad,pt.
Ind eed, ene of the m ost rcmark able aspects of cultural evolutio n is that it
returns in both ob vious and subtIe ways to affect th e body itself. In th e first place,
we find th at culture commonJy compels us to do thin gs to OUT body as a mea ns of
identifying ou rselves in a social un iverse; as a m ember of a class, religion , nation;
or even just as an individual-thin gs like makeup, haircut s, shevng, and even
dressing. Beyond that, there are m ore invasive prod ucts of culture inscribed in our
bod es, like den tal work, cosrne tic surgery, circu rncision, tattoolng. scarification,
foot bnding, and head bind ing.
Moreover, there are subtle ways in which culture affects us biologicalIy: urban
life an d high pop ulation density make infect ious diseases mure ofa thr eat; an agri-
cultu rally based soci ety genera lly has women spend much of their lves in repro -
duc on and caretaking; whilc an industria lized society cornmo nly has women
menstruati ng five to ten tim es more ofte n during the course of the ir lives than
their grandmo thers did. A modernzed econo rny has m en and wome n maturing
earlier and gettin g fatter, therefore making ob estry; hype rteasion, and heart dis-
ease far more com mon causes of death.
 176 CHAPTE R 9 BEING AND BECOM ING Refere nces and Further Readn g 177

Since culture inscribes itself throughout our bodies, we are all to sorne extent, Schultz, A. H. 1949. Ontogenetic specalizatlons of mano Archiv der [uius Klaus-Stftung
as cultural theor ist Donn a Haraway observes, cyborgs. A cyborg or "cybem etic 24:197-216.
orga nsm" is a hybrid- a partly synthe tic, partIy natural crcature. And although Tatter sall.L, and N. Eld redge. 1977. Pact , th eory; an d fan tasy in human paleont oJogy. Amer-
we may think of it principally in terms of artificialli mbs or bionic strength, that is ican Scientist 65:204- 2 11. .
actualIy only the far end of the range. It is continuou s with wearing red ochre 0 0 Thlerry, B. 2005. Hai r grows to be cut. Evolutionary Anthropology 14:5.
Thcrpe, S., R. Holder, and R. Crompton. 2007. Origin of human bipedalsm as an adap ta-
your body to symbolize your status, or displaying pierced shells or animal teeth
tion for lo com otio n on flexible branches. Science 316:1328.
around your neck, or braidiog your hair, as humans seem to have been doing for
WeUs. R. and J. Mc f'add en, ed s. 2006. Human Nature: Pact and Fction. London:
tens of thou sands of years. And no other species does. Co n tin uum .
We thus obser ve that the most paradoxically natural aspect of the human con- Wh ite, T. D. 2009. Ladders, bu shes, punctuetlons , and clades: Hom ini d paleob iolo gy in the
dition is that it resists being identified as "natural," for anything we can see or . late twenti eth ccntury. l n The Paleobiological Revoution: Essays on the Growth ofMod-
mea sure about the body has been coproduced by, and exists in, a context of cul- ern Paleontology. ed. D. Sepkoski and M. Ruse, 122-148. Chcago, IL: Un iversity of
ture , tself in tur n a product ofhuman 'evoluton and human history. Chicago Press.
Yu, D. W . and G. H. Shepard, (1998 ) 15 beauty in th e eye of the bchold cr ! Nature 326:
391-392.
REF ER EN CE S AN D FU RT HE R READI NG
Cartmill, M . 1990. Human u niq ucne ss and theoretica l content in paleoanthropology.lnter-
national fournal of Prirnatology 11:173- 192 .
Crompton, R.II.and M. G nthe r, 2004. Humans and ot her bl peds: Th e evclution ofbped-
ality. fournal of Anatomy 204:317- 330.
De Waal, F. B. M., ed. 2001. Tree of Origin: WlIat Primate Behavior Can Tell Usabout Human
Social Evolution. Cambridge. MA : Harvard Univ ersity Press.
Haraway, D. 1991. Simtans, Cyborgs, and Women: The Renventton of Nature. New York:
Routledge.
Hare, B.. M. Brown, C. WiIliamson, an d M. Tomasello. 2002. Thc domcsticaton of socal
cog nition in d ogs. Science 298:1634.
Hawkes, K.. J. F. O'C on nell, N. Blurto n Ion es, H . Alvarez, and E. L. Cha rnov. 1998. Gra nd -
mothering, me no pause, and th e evolu tio n of human Jife histories. Proceedings ofthe
Nat onal Academy of Scences. U S A 95:1336-1 339.
HiII, K. M. Bart on, an d A. M . Hur tado. 2009. Thc cmcrgen ce ofhuman uniqueness: Char -
actcrs undcrlying behavoral mo demity. Evoutonary Anthropology 18: 187-200.
H rdy, S. B. 1981. The Woman Tnot Never Evolved. Cambridge. MA: Har var d University
Press.
Hrdy, S. R. 2009. Mothers and Others. Ca m bridge. MA: Harva rd Unvcrstty Prcss.
Krogman , W. 1951. The sca rs of huma n evo lutio n. Scentijic American J85 (6 ): 54- 57.
Lancaster, J. L. 1991. A fem insr and evolutionary biologist looks at wom en . Yearbook of
Physical Anthropoiogy 34:1- J l .
Lovejoy, C. Q . 1981. The ori gin of mano Science 211:341 - 350.
Malik, K. 200 2. Man, Beast and Zombie: What Scence Can and Cannot Tell Us About
Human Nat ure. New Bru nswick, NJ: Rutgers Uni ver sity Press.
Ma rks, J. 2009. The na ture of human ness. In The Oxf ord Handbook of Archaeology, ed.
B. Cu n li ffe, C. Gosden, and R. Ioyce, 237-253. Oxfc rd , England: Oxfo rd Un iversty
Press .
. Morgan, E. 1972. The Descent nf I'\oman. New York: Stein an d Day.
Mc rr ls, D. 1967. The Naked Ape. New York: Mc Gr aw -Hill.
Richmo nd, B. G. D. R. Begu n, and D. S. Stra it. 200 1. O rigin of human blpe d alism: Th e
kn uckle-walking hypothess revsted. Yearboo k ofPhysical Allthrop%gy 44:70- 105.

CHAPTER 10
If History Is Humanities, and
Evolution Is Science, What Is
Paleoanthropology? (On the
Assumptions of a 'Diach ronic Science)
TH EME
Paleontology has to rely more on th e serendipitous field discovery than on the
cont rolled laborator y experimento Moreover, no! bcing able to control scentfc
varia bles. the interpretations placed on paleoanth ropo logical data are often more
I
creative and less mutually exclusive tha n th ose in experime ntal sciences. Never-
the less, the principal elements of the story of OU T ongns He in the fossil record.
which comes with its own set of epistemological and cultura l issues.
SCIENTIFIC INFERENCES ACROSS TIME
There are two ways we can study natur al phenom cna scientifically: looking al the
relation ships among things al the same tine (a syn ch ronic study) and tracking the
same cntity at different tim es, oc th rough time (a diach ronic study). Synch ronic
studi es offer th e advant age oflending th emselves to controlled exper imcnts: whle
diachronic studl es offer the adva ntage of yieldng dir ect infor mation on rhngs
th at may tak e place on a different timescale than th e duration of the average exper-
Iment . or the average caree r in science.
The two kind s of studes are complem entary, foc t is widely observed that
"the present is the kcy to th e past"- in othe r words, scientifi c inferences based on
phenomena th at are obse rvab le and ma nipulable (such as the muscles involved in
movement and how th ey relate to th e form of dffer en t part s of the b. .dy) are what
permi t us to undcrstan d thl ngs that happened long ago (such as inferri ng bipedal-
ism from the form ofthe austra lopithecine pelvis),
One question for which synchro nic data are espccially valuabl e is in allowing
us to gauge how physically different two popul ations of prim ates are, when we
would call th em different species. based on the classic interbreeding crtterion-
Since no fossils can inter breed with one an other, it follows that the only way we
can decide how different two fossils have to be befare we can call thcm d tfferent
species is by consulting those kinds of data in livin g species.
178
Skeletal Biology 179
And why sho uld ve bother to worry about it? Because that is the crucial issue
in understanding the fossil record. How do we nterpret the anatom ical varation
we encount eri
Given th at no two fossils, or anim als, are ever exactly alike, how do we make
sense of the differences th at we see! Th e answer to tha t qu estion will affect every
other question we ask about the fossil record: question s sueh as the m ajor pat-
terns of evolution , and th e demograph y and life history of th e species we identify.
To understand our fossils fu Uy, then, we nee d to kn ow details of anatomy to
understand what part we have, how it f its into othe r parts, and wha t that says
abo ut that animal's behavior and Iifestyle. In add ition, however, we need to k.now
how th ose part s di ffer from per son to per son and the patt erns of variation th at we
see in living populations. These are the kind s of features th at assist paleoan thro-
pologists in under standin g th e nature of the material th ey are an alyzlng, and of
course, the y also help foren sic anthro pologists identi fy ndviduals from th eir
ban y rem ains.
SKELETAL BIOLOGY
Sexual Dimorphism
To a crude flrst approxlmation, adult humans in any group come in two szes. Iarge
and smalJ.That is to say,there are ma les and there are females, and the males tend
to be larger th an the femaJes. While there is certainly overlap, f you have a small
adult body part , an d you assign it to a fernale, you have mu ch better th an a 50:50
chance of being right.
Alang with greater body size comes greater musc ulature to move th e larger
body par ts. In general, a Iarger mu sele willleave a larger m ark where it attaches to
th e bone, so a male bone will be thi cker and larger and have larger ridges and
grooves th an th e carresponding part of a fem aJe. We call the former condition
"robust" and th e latter 'gracle," although thesc are obviously relative terros- one
maje skull can obviously be more robu st than ano ther maJe skull. One neck mus-
ele, called sterno cleidomasto id, attaches te a bump of porou s bone behind the ear.
This burnp , thc rnastoid pro cess, is generally noticeably larger 111 men than in
women, and gives a very effective way of quickly iden tifying the sex of a hu man
skull. Other features of th e skull that are useful in thi s way are the slope of the
forchea d (wom en generally m ore vertical), brows (gene rally more pronounced in
males), the rnargin of the eye orbi t (more blunt in mal es), the angle of th e jaw
(more square in males), and the regin in th e back of skull, where the nuchal mu s-
eles attach (m ore ruggcd in m ales). Any ene of th ese tr aits, taken alone, could well
mislead: but takcn together, ene can m ake a strong case for th e sex of a partic ular
skulI.
Sex can be deter mined even more reliably from the pelvis, sinc e the fernale
pelvis has adapted secondarily to having a large-hea ded infan t tak e a ane-way trip
through it.
180 C HAPTER 10 WHAT IS PALE OA NTH ROP O LO G Y?
Ontogeny
When bo rn, a human being not onIy ha s thin, small bone s, b ut mo st of them have
tip s of cart ilage. Th e process of ossification -replacin g pliable car tilage with hard
bo ne -goes on throu ghout childhood . The degree of ossficat on helps to tell how
old th e persan who once surro unded the bone was. Likewtse, the sutu res between
the bo nes of the sku ll fuse and uItimately becom e obliterated du ring the co urse of
a pe rsons life-and wh ile it doesn't mean anyt hing whil e aiive, it can help an
anthropologist teUh ow old the p erson was whe n th ey d ied .
Ccrta inly the best indicator of age is the teeth. Like most othe r mammaIs, we
have two sets of them, and they erupt in very regula r patte rns . The baby teeth , or
deciduous dentition, coosists of 4 sets of 5 teeth-the sam e 5 teeth in th e upper,
lower,lcfi, and righ t pa rts ofthe mouth-for a total of20. T hese are comprised of
2 inci sor s, 1 canine, an d 2 m olars in each jaw quadrant.
Arou nd age five or six, th ese teeth begio to be rep laced by a set of 8 teeth per
quadrant, a process that con tin ues until about age 18, when the last rnc lars, or
"wisdo m teeth" erupt. Once agaln , there is a hgh deg ree of regu larity in the pat-
tern of er uption, so that a kno wledgeabIe anthropologist can tell th e age of a
human being und er the age of abo ut 20 very reliably fro m th e teet h alone. Afier all
of the teeth are In , h owever, it becomes more d ifficult, for now th e teeth just wear
down -and it is conse quently much more dfficult to assess th e age of a fully adult
skull wilh the same degree of precision .
Geographic Variation
In ad dto n to the obvious features of skin color and hair forrn th at vary across
populations arou nd the world, there are also features of th e skull that can help to
identify th e geograph ic or racial" orign of a skull. Th us, sorn e populations tend
to have wide , flat faees-such as th e peoples of north er n Asia; ot hers tend to have
the jaws situated slightly forwa rd relat ive to the face (alveolar prognathism)-such
as th e ind igeno us peoples o Australia; and still oth ers to have a prominent bridge
of th e nose-such as the pe oples of north ern Europ e. The significance of these
featurcs is un known , an d of eou rse there is considerab le overlap: but on ee again,
they give us a bit of information .
Lke an y kn owledge , a litt le bit of th is can be dangerous. Th e faet is that these
geog raphic erani al vari at ions are subtle , and many are resp onsive to th e condttons
oflife and are nct flxcd by the gen es. Thus, when a 9,500-year~old skeleton turned
up in Washingt on State in 1996, and appeared to have sorne cha racteristics assoc-
ated with the skulls of n orthern Europ ean s, it was used as a fu lcrurn to u nbalance
the law that mandates Native American s havin g control of th e skeletons of their
ancestors. T he argumen t ran th at th e skull looked "Caucasoid" and thus could not
have been the ancesto r of Native Am ericans, who are "Mo ngo loid." T hey even
found likeness to the captai n of the Enter pri se in ..\ . 'Jrek The Next Generation"-
. .k
Iean -Luc Picard, a ch araeter of French ancestr y played by Enghsh actor Patnc
Ste wart. Kennewick Ma n coo sequen tly spawn ed sorne fan eifuI reconstr u'>
tion s in th e p opu lar literatu re of the Ameri cas being primordially p opulated
Sourcesof Morphological Varlaton 181
by preh isto ric Fren chmen before th e Asian ances tors ofNative Ame rica ns arr ived.
Ami d considerable controve rsy, th e skull was restudie d and foun d to resembl e
Polynesians evc n m ore than th e Engli sh oc French . Wh at this story really tells us is
tha t the skuUvaries from place to place and tim e to time, its varia tio ns are subtle,
and the cra nium of an ancient Ame rican can resemb le modern Europeans or Poly-
-nesians in sorne ways(and even peoples from ot her parts ofthe world) and yet still
be a close relative of modero Indi an s.
Paleopatholo gy
T he study of vari at ion in the forro of the body also involves the effect s of trauma
on the skeleton. Som etimes the tra uma is in the form oflong-term stress, su ch as
nu triti onal imbalance; or shor t term stre ss, like a broken bone. A healed fracture
is easily recogn ized on a bo ne, and rnany diseases, If left to run their course, leave
char acteri st ic Iesion s on the skeleron: tuberculosis and syphils, for example.
It is gen erally straightforward to disti nguish betweeo healed trauma, skeleral
trauma incu rr ed around the time of deat h (and obviously being a po ssible cause of
death), an d the breakege of bone afte r death (com monly due to weathering, gnaw-
ing by nse cts, or cru r.ching by carn ivores).
Th e microscopic structur e of th e teeth can revea l periodic episo des of famine
or more general growih retarda nrs, whereas th eir macroscopic str ucture ca n show
aspect s of how th ey lved (wea r p atterns), or what they ate (gntty versus soft
foods) , or teehnology(repa ir or decor ativc inl ays), or even crude ances try (as in
th e shape of th e incisors, whic h varies somewh at arou nd the world).
SOURCES OF MORPHOLOG ICAL VARIATION
Ultirnately all infe rences about the fossil record begin with a kn owledge of thc
physical structure of the body, and of the normal (and abnorm al) range of varia -
tions th at affect It. To try 10 understand the relationship between two fossls, which
look slght ly dfferent [mm one ano ther, we are for ced to ma ke dccso ns about th e
relativc prababilities of different so urces of m orpho logieal variation.
The first possibility is that the tv..'o fossils we are looking at are actually par ts
uf two distn etIy different evolving lineages, rep resen tatives of two different spe-
eles. l lcre we infer that the two specimc ns in questio n cxploited th eir environ -
rncnt s in slightly di fferen t ways, or wou ld no t iden tify one ano ther as memb ers of
the same reproductive commun ity. Th is, of course, is based on the amount o f
physieal dfference betwecn the two specimcn s, and is, to sorne extent, a judgrnent
call, ahhough based on reaso nable an aloges to spec es of living primates.
Altern atlvely, the dffere nce between them m ay no t be of taxonomic signifi-
cane e at all, but of d iffering degrees of ma turity. Afte r all, as not ed in chapter 6,
growth and develo pment do es n ot cntail m erely expansion, but is accompanied by
a change of for m as wel l. If we onl y have a child's skull, how can we predict what
an adult woul d loo k lite? That was in fact the pro blem faced by Rayrnond Dart ,
who descnbed th e firstaustralopithecine, the skull of a toddler, in 1925, from a site
 182 C H A PTER 10 W HA T IS PA LEO AN T HR O PO LOGY?
in South Afriea ealled Taung (or Taungs ). Given its fascinating juxtaposition of
ape -like (a sm all br ain) and hnma n-like (sm aU front teeth and large back teeth)
traits, Dart promoted it as a "m ssng link:' He was prob ably right. O n th e other
hand, so were his critics, for th ey knew that you ng apes look mo re human tban
adu lt apes do, and it was over a deeadc before an adult sp ecime n was discovered,
showing clearl y that th e key features ofthe fossil were indeed its human -like traits.
Know ledge of the patterns of dental eru ption can also yield interesti ng insights
int o the fossl record when eombined with new teehnolog ies. Afte r th e Taung
ehild had b een reliably established as sim ilar to hum ans in key ways, and belc ng-
ing to a linea ge of bipeda l pr ima tes with sma ll can in e teet h and, yet, small ape-like
brains, its age at death was determ ined to be abo ut four or five years, based 0 0 its
teeth. A CAT sea n, how ever, revealed th e unerupted adult teeth embedded within
th e fossil jaws. In a huma n, the first ineisor and the frst molar eru pt around the
same time; but in a clu m panzee, th e first mo lar erupts up to two years before the
first incisor. Th e CAT sean of the Taung child sh owed an un erup ted first inci sor
that was con sider ably less developed than the unerupted first molar. T hs sug-
gested th at its de nta l eruptio n patter n, and schedule of maturation, was likely to be
more Iike an ape's th an a huma n's, in spite of the obvious hum an -Iike featuees it
bo re. As a rcsult, we n ow believe the Taung child probably died closer to th ree
years of age.
A third sou rce of variation is sexual dimorphism. We kn ow tha t the skelctons
of male and fema lc humans looksl ightly differen t from one another. Oddly, the
pattern of skeletal sexual dimorphism in human s is quit e different from th at in
apes, wh ere th e male ha s much larger canine teeth , muscle attachments, and over-
all body size. Consequently, f you find a fossil skull, and it looks slightly different
from another fossil skull, might they just be male and femal e of the same species?
Consder th e case of Aegyptopithecus zeux is, a catarrh ine dating from the Ol-
gocene of Egypt, about 30 million years ago. As with th e verte brate fossil record
generally, most of wha t s found h as been tecth, and the mo lar teeth are diagno stic
of thts fossil an im al. Th e mo lars are foun d atta ched to a dive rse arcay of craoi al
remains, bu t most signifiean tly, they are attac hed to either sma Ucanines or large
canines. That tend s to sugges t that wc are seeing sexu al dimorph ism here, along
the lines of what we see in living catar rhi n es gen erally.
On th e other hand, the robust and gra cile australopithecines of Sout h Africa
(chapter 11) were considered by sorne to refleet sexual dimo rph ism , with one
larger; mo re muscula r for m and a smaUer, more delcate form oBut this idea dd
not catch on, for th e pre su mptive male s and presump tive fema les lived in different
places and at different tim es. Mor e importantly, th e Jarger on es considered to be
I
thc males act ually had sma ller canines Ihan the ones con sdered to be th e females-
Th ey wouId have been th e onIy catarrhine primates kno wn to show such a pat-
. ter n, so the n feren ce wa s prob ably falseo Th ey are more likely two evolu tionary
lineages.
Ano th er souree of variation is temporal. We kn ow th at a single lineage
ehanges throug h time, sometimes genetically. some times not oTh e introduction of
Sources of Morphological Variation 183
farmi ng, and a heavy reliance on prepared food, affeeted the growth of the jaws
an d struc ture of th e face in a similar fashion all over th e world. Likewise, eco-
nom ic development and mo derni zation seem to lead to people gett ing Iarger and
maturing earlier all over the wo rld. Conse quentIy, Iapanese of the present day look
as "Iapanese" as thei r ancestor s 100 years ago, th ey but are not physically ident ical
to those ancestors-they are (among othe r th ings) taller and heavier.
Once again, find ing two skulIs to be slightly dfferent in appearance m ay
merely indic ate that they are representatives of th e same lineage at different times.
A fifth source of variation is geographic. A broadly distributed specics, sueh
as rats or people, often contains popul ations adap ted to local conditions and more
oc less isoIated from populations of the same species that live far away. What then
do we make of two fosss, similar but slightly different in for m, bu t from thou-
sands of miles apart ?
An exarnple here is Horno erectus, known from Tan zania, China, and Java.
The form from Java was originally cal1 ed Pithecanthropus erectus; the one from
China. Snan th ropus pekinensis; and the on e from Africa (OH-9). Horno erectus.
Are thcre th ree genera" : Probably n ot-just a single species whose populations
look ed slightly different, as th e present-d ay people of Tanzania, Chi na, and Indo-
nesia do.
A sixth source of variation is simply the no rm al range th at exists among any
population of crganisms, especally pe ople. Any grou p has taller and shorter, or
thin ner and fatter represent atives. All th e parts of the body vary to sorne extent
from one person to the next. Mig ht the two fossils be different simply by virtue of
falling withi n a range of variat on on the p art of a single speces! .
Seventh, there is also an abnormal range of variatio n. Sorne of it is genetic-
such as aeho ndroplastic dw arfism. Sorne of it is the result of traum a oc disease.
How do you kn ow whether the two fossls differ because they are different species,
(I r whether you have just discovered the skelet al remains of the Pleisto cene equiv-
alcnt of [ohn Merrick, The Elephant Man?
T he answer is th at such gcnetic conditions are quite rare; and consequently,
the chance of find ing an ind ividual so afflict ed in thc fossil record would have to
be qu ite 10w. Of course we can't rule it out ent irely. Th us, when th e nin eteenth -
centur y racist biologist Emst Haeckel proclaim cd that the fossil diseovery of
"Neunderthal Man" was evid ence no t just for the human past (chapt er 3), but [oc
thc inevitable future dominance of the No rdic m ilitarized state as well, it placed
his academ ic rival (and former professor) Rudolf Virchow in th e di ffieult position
of having to deny both the political agenda and the fossil's sign ifieanee. He en ded
up.weakJy suggesting it was sorne sor t of pathologically afflicted person from h is-
torie tim es.
We do encounter the afflictions of aging, such as arth ritis and decaying teeth ,
througho ut the later evolution of our fam ily. In another f:ll110US misinterpretation,
. the French paleontologlst Marcelliu Boule eor reetly reconstructed a famous fossil
skcleton from the French site of La Chapelle aux Saints as standing somewhat
stooped: and thls caught on as a reconstr uct ion of Neand ertal postu re. in spite of
 184 C H A P TER 10 WHAT 15 PAL EOANTH ROPOLOGY?
th e faet th at the fossil skeleton from La Chapelle was that of an old man with
arthritis, and not represent ative of all Neandertals!
And fin ally, over th e millions of years a fossil lays in the grou nd, lots of things
can happen to it. It can be erode d, crushe d, and otherwise distorted or deform ed
by the geological proeesses aeting on it. A crushed skull gves an anatomist sorne
deg ree of freedom in reconstructing the animal - it has been likened to attempting
a th ree-dim ension al jigsaw puzzle with m ost of the parts missing. Sometimes the
defor mations are more subtle, and sometimes the knowledge that a specimen is
distorted does not accompany the circulation of its ph otographs. We can call th ese
sources of variation "post-depos ttonal, ' and they will indu de everything from
be ing trampled by buffalo shor tly afte~ dying, through rhe endurance of the mas-
sive forces of th e ear th's erust, to the ways in which the parts are assembled.
One recent exampl e involves a new 7-million -year-old fossil known as Sahel-
anthropus tchadensis- the most widely publicized pho to m ade it look like it had a
brow ridge very sim ilar to later hominids; oth ers made it Jook like the fossil had
had a stroke, showi ng cons iderable facial asymmetry and distortion. It will require
a bit of reconstru ction before we know what it really looked likc.
Another notable example involved a famous fossil discovcrcd in 1972 by Ber-
n ard Ngene o, a member ofRiehar d Leakey's expedtion on the eastcrn side ofLake
Tur kana in Kenya. It carne to be known as ER-1470 (after "east Rudolf," the former
na me ofth e lake), and attraeted cons iderable attention for the c1aim th at it was in
sorne sense anomalous: too mod ern, too early. Reeonstru cted from over 100 small
bit s of fossil by Alan Walker an d Meave Leakey, the skull was initially photo-
graphed with th e face pushed in, renforc ng its mo dero look; but more recent
pictures of it show the face push ed out , and looki ng more primitive. Initially the
point of contac t between th e facial parts and th e cran ial parts was not olear, so a
case could b e made for th e vertical face- a1though ma king it 100k likc the other
kn own ho m inid s of th e tim e was always th e safe conservative ch oice. Moreover,
th e specime n is n o longer anomalously early, bu t its brai n is still on the h igh slde
for its time.
LUMP ING AND SPLITTING
Our survey of the sources of variation in the fossil record is associated with two
poles of taxonomic practice. The first wou ld be represented by those scholars who
ten d to maximize the taxonomic diversity; inte rpre ting the variation between the
fossils as being in dicative of dfferent species. We can call them "splitters" (chapter
7) because they tend to split the fossils into too many distin ct taxa. The other pole
would be represented by tho se scholars who tend to maximize the amount ofvar-
iation attributab le to those other sources. We call th em "lumpers" because they
. ten d to lump th e fossls in to.too few distinct taxa.
Most primate grou ps h ave gone through faddis h cycles oflumping and split-
ting. As we noted in chapter 7, the primates are currently undergoing a cyele of
splttlng, encouraged by th e needs of conservat ion. Perhaps the most celebrated
Fossilization 185
examples oflumping involved compressing what we n ow see as 20- 30 ape genera
of the Miocene int o simpIy Dryopithecus; and Donald Joh anson and Tim White
in 1974 studying the assemblag es from differen t hominid fossil sites in East
Africa aro und 3 m illion years of age, an d calling th ema11 Aus tralopithecus
afarensis.
The ho mtnds are curren tly going through a cyde of spltting, but for reasons
peculiar to them. We can understand it by cons ideri ng th e "mo ral econ omy"-
the professional assets and liabilities-of splitting in paleoanthro pology. What
do es a scholar stand to gain or lose one way or the other? By calling a new fossil
the "first X;' you get headlin es, grants, an d promotions; by calling a new fossil
"the twelfth y;' you get to contin ue to labor in obscurity. By acknowledging some-
on e else's fossl as thc "frst W;' you get their good will, which is always nice to
h ave f YO il want to examine thei r fossils. And furthermore, splitt ing creates
en ough taxonomic "space" for aH th e majo r players to have th e foun d the first
something.
Moreover, the current favored mode of ana lysis s clad istics (chapter 6)-
which Is based on the idea that sharing a derived tr ait is ind icative of recent
common ances try. Unfo rtun ately, however, clad istics doesn't work below the
species level, wh ere a dcrived trat can be transmitted from gro up to group by
gene flow, rather than by common desc ent. Purth er, c1adistics req uires that
pa rallel evolu tion be rare in re1ation to dive rgen t evolut ion, so that a shar~d
derived tra it reflects the intimacy of common ancestry, rathe r th an the coin ci-
den ce of similar envi ro nme ntal pressures or similar mutations. But sim ilar char-
acte ristics often do erap up in parallel in divergent p opulations: blon d h air
among indigenous Swedes and Australians; relatvely sma ll jaws an d teeth in
many p eoples; sho rt stature; copious male body hai r; or a prominent bridge of
the nose. If these fossil assemblag es reflect one or a few speces, the n the meth -
odology of dadistics may sim ply n ot be applcable to them; bu t elevating fossils
to the species Jevcl makes th e methodology of d adistics appear more appropr -
ate, and can make the whole enterprise look more rtgor ous an d objective th an it
act ually may be.
FO SSI LIZATION
~ There are three things a primate mus t do to become a bit of data for paleoanth ro-
pology: (1) die, (2) fossilize, and (3) be foun d.
Th e first is easy, rath cr too easy for most mo dern pr imates.
The second, bowever, is quite tricky, for it is generally opposed by the ele-
ments: Not the elements of the mo dern period ic table, but the oId elements-
, earth, ai r, wind, and fire. A dead animal on the African savanna does no t Iast very
long -betwcen the hyenas, vultures, an d Jnsects, there might be n o trace remain-
, ing ofthe animal in a m atter of days. So we need to imagine an animal dyin g, but
not being entire ly devoured. Even if no t wholly devoured, thoug h, exp osure to the
I! sun , wnd, an d water may be eno ugh to disintegrat e th e remains. So we need the
186 C HA PT ER 10 . WHA T IS PALEOANTH ROP OLOG Y?
dead an imal to elude th e scavengcrs, and be bur ied quic kly, o ut of har ms way. But
it ha d better ehoose soil that is not too acidic or alkalne, for o the r wise th e na tural
chernistry of th e ground will cause it ultimately to dissolve.
Mo reover, th e ground must be m in er a li zed , for th e process of becom ing a
foss l is not so muc h prese rva tion as it is tr ansform ation. Unlike in sects in amber,
which ret ain th eir physical integrity by being insulated from everythn g ext ernal,
th e pr ocess of Cossilization involves th e su bstit ution of the ato ros of the grou nd for
the ato ms oC the an ima l. Little by litt le th e organic (that is, carbon-based) cells and
proteln ma trix th at comprise bon e (and very rarely, th e soft organs too) becom e
thei r own inorganic replicas. The fossil, the n, is no t the animal tself but a rock in
the perfeet forrn of the animal.
This, oC cours e, takes tens of thous~nds of years.
For dead an imal s a few thousand years old , the process of fossiliza tion is
incomplete, an d sornetimes DNA can be extrae ted, as h as bee n earried out on
2000-yea r-old exti nct lem urs from Madagascar and 40,OOO-yea r-old Neandertals.
The speed of the process of fossilization depends on the co ndition s of preserva-
tion: th e 9,500-year-old Ken newick Ma n had no detectable DNA left, but is not
fuUy a fossil.
Finally, the fossl must be foun d. Tbat's th e hard o ne.
O bvio usly paleontologists can't dig a big ha le half a m ile deep to find fossils of
the desired age, but m ust rely on geoIogical processes to expose the an cie nt gro und,
eithe r verlical1y or horizon tally. T hen they m ust m ake sure tha t th ere ar e fossils
contain ed within th is exposure. And once paleontologists have an exposure of the
ri ght age, and kno w tha t it has fossls, th ey m ust scour th e gro un d to see what is
weath eri ng out- they can't very weJl bu lldoze th e wh ole region. Hop efu11y the fos-
sils will inelude sorne pri m ates-c-if tha t is wha t they're lo oking for-and not, say,
exa mple after exam ple of antelop e m olars .
Bu t once found, th e fossils ar e ren der ed m ean ingfu l by the paleoanth ro polo-
gist. Tha t m canin g is go in g to Iic in the arcas of ta xo no mv (wha t species they
represent): phylogeny (whe re th ey fit in the evolutio na ry sto ry), an d broade r
patt ern s of adaptation, speclatton, an d extinc tio n. T he gcologrcal con text and
ana tomi cal features are on ly part ofth e pictur e: th e spatial relati on ships in which
the bo nes He, th e ecology, an d (after about 2.6 milJio n years ago) the artifacts
ass oc ated with the fossils, are all so ur ces of im por tant in for m ation in under-
st and ing hu m an evolutio n fulIy. Thus, n ot on ly does pa leo nt olo gy need to be
info rm ed by natomy and geo logy, but by archaeology, paleoecology, and taph o-
n omy (the st udy of what happe n s to a foss il between the tim e it di es and is
found ).
OTHE R C ON SIDER ATIONS
One other pro blem tha t needs to be co nside red is th at the ho t, d ry cJimate that s
b est fo r fossilizatio n is gene rally not a grea t plaee to lve, an d discovering things in
the grou nd is mo st efficien tly aeco mplished where there are n't too ma ny peop le
Other Consideratlons 187
around. Co nsc que ntly, the discovery of fossils m ost eorn mo nly takes place in areas
that are remote, sparsely populated, forb iddi ng, an d often downright dangero us.
The badlands of Mo nt ana yield fossils of early primat es, abo ut 45 million years
ego: th e de ser ts of C ha d yielde d an early ap e known as Sohelamhopus, from 7 mil -
lion years ego: ano th er known as Ardip ithecus carne out of the deserts of Ethiopia.
And not on ly are these places hard to get to, an d har d to work in, bu t t here com -
monly are hurdles involved in gett ing the appro priate authorizations to co nd uet
research, an d protecting your gro up from robbers, param ilitary forces, local war-
lords, corrupt admini strato rs, and po litcal nsurgents,
Even so, there are also glob al po litical issues to be considered. In m any reg ions
of the world, paleoanthropology has been a hand m aid of colonialism oAftcr a11,
most ofth e fossils of early ho min ids are fro m frica, and mo st of the pe opIe stu dy-
ing th em are white : it doesn't take a rocket scientist lo figur e that on e out. (Actu-
ally; pe rha ps, it takes a social scientist.)
In sorne coun t ries, the government no w insists tha t the original fossils rem ain
in th e co untr y and t ha t the scientist agrees to train students from that country. The
fossils thernselves, as early ancestors, beeom e n ationaI relics- sym bo lizing the
au tochtho nous root s ofthe nati on and its importance in the globa l his to ry of o ur
species.
O ne interesting example of th e sign ificance of these fossils in co nst ruc ting a
nati ona l identit y and origin myt h is South fr ica, whe re th e first australopithe-
cines, and sorne of the most important fossils gene ralIy, camc to light. But when
the NationaI Party took over po wer in 1948 and built up the raci st policies they
ca1led apa rt he id, t hey were face d with sorn e po sstble ernba rrass mc nts. First of all,
they were allied with th e Dutch Reformed Ch urch , an d were com m itted to a lit-
eral, creatio nist reading of th e Bible. And second, they were actively dehumaniz-
ing the ind igenous peoples of th e ar ea, whosc rights to th e land m ight be
symbolically lcgitimi zed by havi ng the human species roote d there. No exh ibits on
hum an evol utio n were permirted in th eir m uscum s, and paleoanthro pology itsclf
was Iarg ely hid de n fro m view as well. But whe n the govern m ent changed in 1994,
so did both of those factors; be ing a "cradle of our species" was no w celebrat ed:
and the indigenous peoples now cou ld take pride in having "their an eestors" be
adm ired by scientists the world over, Nelson Man de la, thc new Presldent,
ad dressed a paleoanthropological convent ion in 1996, an d pa leoanth ro pologist
Robert Broo m had a stamp issued in his h on or.
A more in farno us example involved t he discovery of "Peking Man" by a Ca na-
dian anato m ist named Davidson Black , teaching in China in th e 1920s. After
Black's death , the research in Ch ina was supervised by Franz Weidenreich, him self
an expatrate fro m the Nazi regime. By the late 1930s, the caves at Zho ukoudian
had yielded the fossils of abo ut 40 individuals, now kn own as Horno ereetu s, an d
we re secn as an cestors by th e Ch ines e. When the Iapanese threatened to invade
Manchuria, th ey also m ade It elear tha t the y intended to destroy those very Ch i-
nese anc estors an d leave th eir victims rootless. what was the conc erned paleoan -
thropologst to do?
 188 C HAP TER 10 WH AT IS PA LEO A NTH RO POl O G Y?
Weid enreich decid ed that the best course of action was to send the fossils to a
safe haven . Fine. detailed casts of th e specimens had already been ma de an d sent
to museums around the world. Now Weidenr eich's Chi nese collcagues panstak-
ingly wrappe d and cra ted the or iginal fossils and pre pared to send the m off to the
safest place in the area, the Ame rican naval base in Hawaii, transpor ted by a
detachmen t of U.S. Marines on the S. S. President Harr ison .
Badly ti med, as it turned out. Th e fossils were to leave Ch ina on December
8, 194 1 (Decem ber 7 on the other side of the International Date Une), for
th e nava l ba se, which was called "Pearl Har bor;" But the Iapanese atta cked the
Ame rica n Pacific fleet that day, the Marines were caprurcd, and the shp they
were supposed to be on was sunk. To th is day we don't know wheth er the fossils
were actually on the shi p whe n it sank, or wheth er th ey ar e h idd en away in the
care of sorne obs cure anonymous coIlecto r. The actua l fossils haven't been seen
sinc e then .
Th e Chincse blame the Ame rica ns for th eir loss. th e Americans blame the
Iapanese,
A third example of the role th at globa l and national politi cs can play involves
co ntem pora ry work at a site called the Tuge n Hills, in Kenya. For over ovo decades,
th rough dramatic polltcal cha nges in the country, Andrew Hill ofYale had con -
du cted paleoa nthropological research there, gett ing the app rop riate perm its
th rough his govern me nt contacts, and painstakingly mapping the geology of the
reglen, but fin ding no signifcant fossils. On ly a few years ago, a Prench team led
by Mar tin Plckford an d Brigitt e Senut got permits to work in th e same regin, from
dfferent govern me nt contacts, an d shortly th ereafter dscovcrcd Orrorin tugenen-
sis, whic h m ay well be th e earl iest known biped, at 6 milli on years of age. Quickly,
ncws of a turf war bro ke out in the pages of the leadin g science journals, as Hill's
Am erican group quite reason ably accus ed th e Frcn ch group of enc roachment- of
not respecting th e ge neral ethical prot o cols of the field, wh ich try to d iscourage
rival gro ups from excavati ng in th e sa me a rea (it's a b ig wo rld, after al ll). Ptck-
ford and Senut responde d, also qu ite reasonably, th at it was just sou r gr apes .
And to sorne outs de rs, it Iooked very od d th at two grou ps uf white resear chers
would be argu ing vehementIy over who had preferred rghts to a trael of lan d
in frica.
And finally, 0111 academic fields have their stories of uncollegial behavior.
Mark Twain rep utedly once said that th e reason academic dispu tes ar e so vicious
s th at th e stakes are so sma ll. But the sto ry of Ion Kalb ma y represent the nadir of
unscrupulous ness. Kalb was a geologst worki ng in Ethiop ia, an d part of the
research team that fou nd the fosstl ealled "Lucy" in the earIy 1970s. But when it
becam e clear that the arca indeed hel d important fosslls, the group fragmented
into a Fre ne h team and two American team s, one from Berkeley and on e from
New York University and Southern Methodist University, head ed by Kalb. Soon
Kalb found his per mits bcing revoked, his grants being rejected. an d his lfe in
jeapard y. He later lear ned that his rivals had spread th e rumor that he was a CIA
agen t, and everyt hing else had cascaded from that acto
Rights and Responsbilities in Paleoanthropology 189
The point is that resear ch does no t tak e place extern al1y to a matrix of culture.
especially in the exercise of pclitical power. And for a field that trades in people's
con ceptions of who th eyare and whe re th ey carne from, their identity and descent ,
th e co mpettion and pressure will be very great , an d the cultural influences will
likely be very great, too.
RI GHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES I N
PALEOANTHROPOLOGY
One notable outgrowth of the rgors involved in field paleoanthropology is that it
de mands a specific set of aptitu des. and it is not un cornmon that the pe rson who
finds the fossils (or for whom the actual fin de r works) may n ot be th e most qual-
fied to interpret it . The best interpreter of the fosslls may be thc one who spe nds
more tim e in rnuseum basements eornpar ng spec lmc ns. or working on the cu t-
ting edge of exp eri ment al anato rny and ph ysiology.
W hile fieldworke rs are accorded the respec t th at comes wit h dis covery, and
the first rights of pub licatio n and interpretation , it is often the reinter pr etation of
th e speci me n tha t makes more sens e of it. After th e fanfare th at greets the dscov-
ery of "th e earllest X" dies down , scholars with d fferenr traini ng and specializa -
tion can determine wh ether it is indeed earlier th an all the othe r Xs, or whe the r it
is indeed an X at all and what its d ifferences from Ys m ay m ean .
But th at m eans th at some times th e fin der's initial int erpretation needs to be
revsed, whic h may be a Iittle em barrassing. Sorne mu seurn pa leoanthropologists
have recentIy beg un publicly airin g their frus tra tion over the reluctanc e of S01.~~ e
field p aleo ntologists to allow th eir colleagues to see and exam ine th eir specim ens
in a timely fashion . On the one hand, all parties agree that credit for discovery an d
"frsr dib s" on publcation is a recognition of the fieldw orkcr's risky busin ess.
But with th ose rlghts. are there any responsib ilities n currcdl Does the feld -
worker have an obligation to publish the material in a timely fash ion, and allow
colleagues to see and ph otograph the new specimen? If so, how do es that respon-
sibility get enfc rced l
Sorne resear ch ers found them se1ves deni ed permission to exa mine th e or igi-
nal specirnen s of A rdp thecus, stor ed in Ethiopi a by colleagues of the Berkeley
pal eoa nthropologist Tim Wh ite. Fur th er; th ey voiced their complaint abo ut the
discovery of a full skeleton of A rd p ithecus, kn own to have been found in 1995, but
finally publish ed only in 2009. W hile these charges are not th ose of miscon duct ,
nor of the breach of any formal cth ical sta ndard s, they do raise the issue of the
ade quacy of the oId informal code of rgh ts an d obligatio ns th at worked well
enough back whe n paleoan thropology was a sm all an d gentlemanly pursuit. Pub-
Jic disputes over th e control an d care of fossils from Liang Bua, Indonesia (cal1ed
"Horno floresien sis" or The Hobbit) also broke ou t. And of co ur se, th e flip sirle of
the comm unity's impatience with the publ caton of Ardip ithecus is that the labo-
ratory wor k involved in extractin g. pre serving, an d rebu ilding the delicate and
valuable fossils is very costIy and time cons uming, f you want to get it right.
 190 C H A PT E R 10 WHAT 15 PALE OAN TH RO P O LO G Y?
KINDS OF EVIDENCE
Paleoant hropology straddles traditional disciplinary boundarlcs by dem anding
both expertlse in the hard sciences of anatomy and geology, and in the soft sci-
en ces of inferr ing behavior and social relations (roro a distribution of artifacts.
The primary research conducted by paleoanthrop ologists reflects this breadth. In
add ition te excavating for fossils and recogni zing the anatomical features they
en cou nter, scholars nterested in paleoanthropology must ut ilize other diverse
dat a and meth ods.
Super pos itio n and Association
Two "Iaws" govern the interp retation of diachro nic materia ls. Prst, more geolog-
cally recent materials are gen eraliy foun d physically on top of older materials. This
relatioo ship is known as superposition, and holds except in th e cases of odd geo-
logical forrnatons and the human propensity for burying th e dea d. Digging a
gr ave and placng a body at its bo ttom means thar the bod y is now somewhat
you nger than the ma terial six feet aboye ir. But this has been gong on for tens of
th ousan ds of years, and necessitates careful examioation of the site.
And second, two artifacts (biological or cultural) found in the same geological
layer or stratum are abo ut the same age. Th is relationshp is known as association,
and genera lIy holds except for the human intervent ion notedabove.
With these two "laws" intem alized, we can begin to make sense of the fossil
record, at least in one place-by app lying the logic of superposition and associa-
ton, and establish ing the relative dates of fossils and art facts, from oldest (lowest)
to younge st (highest). The strata and associated remains from any specific era can
then be studied for paleoecolog ical inform ation. Palynol ogy (the stu dy of fossil
poli en) can tell you what kinds of plant s were present; and the kinds of plants can
tell you about the local environment. Associated fauna, espe cialIy of dlverse and
widespread mammals like pigs and rod ent s, can permit th e correlation of on e slte
with anoth er.
Th ese corr elations are crucial for und crstanding th e rclationships and the
relative agcs of fossils. For example, in th e 1930s, a British archaeolog ist named
Dorothy Garrod excavated a site in modero -day Israel called Mt. Carmel. In ene
cave werc the rem ains ofNeandertals, in anoth er cave were the remains of humans.
The stratigraphy. or natu ral layering of rhe earth, was co mplex, and Garr od took
th e fossils to be th e same age. This shap ed our views of Neandertals for ha lf a ceo-
tury, the appart' O' side-by-side coexist ence of h umaos and Neandertals. It wasn't
until the ]980s that subsequent archaeologists carne to realize that the stratigraphy
indi cated that th e bo nes in one of the caves were 30,000 years older th an those in
th e othe r!
. One important implication of the concep t of association is the ability to make
inferen ces about the ecological setting of our fossil ancestors by analyzing the
remains of the th lngs th ey lived with . In an othe r famous examp le, Richard Leak-
ey's fossil ER-1470 (seeabove) was thought initially te be 2.6 million years old,
Dong the Best WeCan with Lost Data 191
which wou ld make it considerably olde r tha n other sim ilar fossils. But the pg
fossils from the site correlated perfectly with pigs from other sites th at were only
1.8 million years old . Argumen te abo ut the age of th e fossil raged for about a
dccade: but we now realize tha t the pigs were righ t, and the fossil horninid is no
longer considercd so anomalous.
Dating
Superposition and association he1p us to un derstan d the relative ages of fossils-
that s, which carne first- but still doesn't help us to tell just when the species lived.
For thls, we need othe r kinds of tech niques that became available in the Iatter half
of the twen tieth centu ry. Prior to that tim e, fossils were grouped according to th eir
geological eras, and th e orgns of the human lineage were thought to lie anywhere
from 500,000 years ago to 20 mllio n years ago.
The devclopme nt of radio carbon datin g change d all that. If you know th e rate
of decay (5.370 years for half of " C lo break down ), the proportlon of "C the ani-
mal started with, and yoo can measure the amount of 14C th e specimen has, you
can estim ate how long t ha s been dead. Wh en coupled with goo d conditions of
preservation and careful selection of the material for dating (seashells are not good
because they absorb inorgan ic carbon and thus appear art lficially ancient, while
charcoa l from the art 0 0 a cave wall is very good bccause it is was livin g vegetable
matter until the cave dweller burnt it and groun d for pigment) , rad iocarbon dating
quick1y became the fou ndation for our und erstand ing of th e spread of anatom i-
cally modern peoples in Europ e, an d stimulated th e develop ment of oth er absolute
dati ng methods.
D O I N G THE BEST WE CAN WITH LO ST DATA
Ccrt alnly the m ost significant aspect of paleoanth rop ology is wh at is lost an d
no t directly rccoverable, b ut can only be dedu ced an d inferr ed (bu t not, of
cou rse, m erely "gues sed at"). \Ve h ave already n oted one su ch prob lem: that of
d ctcrm in ing what the species are, and assem blin g th e fosstl m ateri als int o thei r
fun da ment al ecologcal an d evolut io na ry u nits. Since we cannot apply the
inter brecd ing cr iterion to fossils (rhe cr iterion itself is no t foolpro of, but cer-
tatnly is a handy gu ide to d isccrnin g the specles). we ca n a nly match up degr ees
of anatomical variation am ong living species with th o se o f a fossil assemb lage,
and deci de whe rher the foss il assem blage reprcsents two, or onl v on e, spectra
of var iation.
This is a crucial epistcmological issue -for our inferences about macroevolu-
tionary dversity, rates 0:-change, and broader trend s in evolution are going to be
predlcated upon ou r knowledgc of what th e species are. This is not to say th at we
are Ilyng completely blind- but simp ly that th e specics we iden tify ngbt now
may o nly approximate the sped es identifiable in th e fossil record. Species that
may strik ingly differ principally by their pelage (hair) and ch rom osornes, like
modern vervet monkeys and gbbons. may not be discerni ble as mltiple species
 192 CHAPTER 10 WHAT IS PALEOANTHROPOLOGY?
in th e fossil record. Or conversely, species that are highly ph ysically diverse bu t
nevertheless compr ise a sing le gen e pool, like dom estic dogs, m ay not be discern -
ible as a single species in the fossil record.
On balance, however; we use OUT knowledge of modern species to inform our
in ferences of ancient ones , and hope that whateve r m istakes we make will balance
each othe r out , or ultimately be corrected by new discoveries.
The secon d directly unr ecoverable itero is physiology. Altho ug h rarcIy th e
"soft parts" like the br ain or other organs can be fossilized, we are usually at th e
m ercy of biological in ferences fro m the skeleta l syste m alone. To the extent that
muscles are attac hed to the bon es and com mo nly leave ma rks on th em in pro -
portion to th eir size, we can make rigorous inferences about the muscular system
as well. . On ce agan. th is situation poses an epistemological problem. Given thc dff-
But what of the neurological system ? Or the digestive system?, Or the rcspi-
ratory system? Here we are forced to mine the primate body for any kind s of rela-
tio n ships th at might obt ain between the forro of the skeleto n and relevant aspccts
of th e missing parts of the body, Sometimes the relationships are quite good, such
as the between the skull and tbe brain inside it. In a wcll p reserved fossil it is pos-
sible to make an endocast of the insideofthe skull and see the size and shapeof the
lobes of the brain, and the meningea l arte ries on either sde of it. More often, how -
ever, the relationships are obscure, and the proposed anato mic al corr elations sirn-
ply don't hol d up. It was recently suggested, for example, th at we might get a
skeleta l handle on whether a fossil was capable of speech by virtue of the sizc of the
groove in the skull base through wh ich th e hypoglossal nerve passes. lt was soon
appreciated, th ough, that the relation ship s are just too cornplex to draw a solid
conclusion from that skeletal datum .
Th e thtrd directly unrecoverable item is behavior, Not only does an animal
stop behaving when it dles, but it h ard ly f ever freezes while in thc m iddle of doin g
sorneth ing. We may have preserved the conditions of its d eath , bu t th at doesnt
automatically teU us abou t the conditio ns of its life. Once agaln, our kno wledge of
behavior is limit ed to what we can infer fro m the bone s. Sorne ana tomi sts, for
examplc, maintain tha t th ere is nothing anatomical about th e ha nd bones of
Paranthropus th at would preclude it being a toolmaker over a millio n years ago,
Iike OUT own genus, Horno. This of cou rse docs not n ecessari ly mean it was a tool-
maker, but simply tha t, to the exrent that th e neuro muscular contro l necessary for
the activity leaves its irnprint on th e skeleton, the imprint appea rs to be ind istin-
gu ishable between the m and uso
Inferences such as th at can help us at least lo place boundaries around our
scena rios of the Ives of extinc t species, by helping to establish what thc y were
mo re or less likely to have been capable of doing."In mo st oth er cases-c-such as
social behavior or sexual behavior-c-our Inferen ccs are doo rned ro be very crude,
leaving th e sp ace for imagination vast and open.
Th e fourth directIy u nrecovcrable in forrnatio n is the fuJI range of species
diversity in th e past. Given the difficult ies ofbecom ing a fossil and being {ound, il
should nol be surpiising th at our knowledge of extin ct species is a small and
Doing the Bcst weCan with Lost Data 193
biased samp le-biased toward species th at havc preservable par ts (lke oysters and
unlike jel1yfish) , toward specics th at hap pcned to llve in cond tons favorable to
preservation, and toward species that we find intcresting and wor th looking foro
Th is problem- the spottin ess of the fossil record itsclf-accounts for th e instabil-
ity of the phylogen etic hypotheses we put forwa rd .
Consid er two similar speces, A l an d 8 1, wh ich lived at differen t time s. You
infer that they are genealogically related because they look allke, and that th e ear-
lier one (A l) is likely tn h ave bec o an ancestor of thc later one (Bl). But was th e
species Al itself the ancestor of spec ies B1, or was spec ies A 1 simply on c member
of a gro up of species ofthe genus A, ano th er member of which was the ancestor of
the founder spe cies of the genus B?
culty of en ter ing th e fossil record, and then of being found , we bclieve that only a
tiny sampl e of th e species that have ever lved have actually been discovered. So it
is probably very un likely th at any particular known species directly evolved into
any particular other known spcccs, witho ut having diverged into scveral nter -
vening speces as yet unknown. So if we know of two species, which stand in a
close physical rclatonshp, and which make a plausible ancestor-descenda nt
sequence, on the on e band , we cannot simpl y pretend that they repre sent six spe-
ces: and yet we also cannct pretend tha t it is likely th~t one directly evolvcd into
the oth cr.
What we do. then, is adop t a shor thand in which we draw th e two known spe
des in a sequence. but we interpret it loosely as "th s species, or one d osely related
to it, evolved into this other speces, or one closely rclated to it " Ultimately, that
statement lies at the limit of OUT kno wlcdge, given the difficulty in knowing about
species we have n ot found, which is un fortunat ely most of them.
The last unreccverable item , how ever, is bot h the most vexing and the m ost
exciting loss of information: phyJogeny. The relationship arnong anccstors and
dcscendants is never directly observed in the fossll record. it is always inferre d.
You never see th e fossilizcd remains of a mother of one species giving birt h to an
infant of an other specles. Rather, you see a fossil assemblage repr esenting a species
al one point in time, and another fossil assemblage exhibiting slghtly different
anatomical features at a later time; and you decide whether or not to dra w a con -
necting Iine between them .
If YO UT line con nects the m d irectly, then you are inferring that the older is thc
an cestor and th e younger is th e descenda nt-a pare nr -offspn ng relationship; f
your line connects them indirectly, th en you are inferr i-ng th at th cy are mo re ds-
tant relatives of a cornmon anccstor- more like cousins . You cou ld also choose
not lo connect them at all- the position of "creationism"-but that would raise
more problem s in interpreting th e data scientifically than it wou ld sa lve. where
d id the later species come from ? Why do es it look so much like th e eartier speces
Is th al resemb lan ce just a coinctde nce! And if aH of geology is.wrnng, and thc
earth is only 6,000 years oid, then why bother to .study geological data at aH, if all
it does is lie?
 Classfying the Living Apcs and Fossil Ancestors 195
194 C HA PT ER 10 W H AT I S PALEO AN T H RO P OL O GY?

Human "Sabre-toothed Ea le
MAKING SENSE F HUMAN ANCESTRY tger"
On ce the mo rphologies of the relevant fossils have been studied, and their rem ains
assemh led int o sp eces, the mo st basic un its of macro evolution ary analysis, what 15 roya
do we do with th e species? We generall y envision a three-step proc ess in under-
Tyrannosaurm
standing our biolog ical histor y.
The first step involves gro uping them according to the distributi on ofsyn apo - 70 roya ""
mo rphi es (chapter 6). the derved tra its oc evolutionary novelties that come pas-
sively along wtth descent fro m a recent common ances tor. Species that share m any
such featu res will be one ano the r's close relatives; and th e rcsulting diagram depct - ISOmy.
ing the distr ibution of shared derived tr aits s called a cladog ram.
One impo r tant feature of a elado gram is th at it has no time dimension oIt is a 200 roya
chart of thc relationsh ips ofspecie s in term s of their shared evolutionary novelties. Figure 10. 2. Tem p'ral and inferred genealogica l relation ships of the same
In Figure 10.1, we see severa l species that lived at differen t times: huma ns (Horno),
sixtaxa.
an extinct pr imate called Proconsul, the so-ca lled sabre- toot hed tiger (Smilodon).
Tyrannosaurus rex, a bald eagle (Haliaetus), and Archaeopteryx. Adding th e temporal dim ension allows us to produce a chart with additio~al
T he derived features of the first two would inelude the han ds and eyes th at inferences, a ph ylogenetic tree or phylogeny. (See ~igure 1O.~.) Here we ~In~
allow us to identify them as prima tes; the next is joined by virtue of skeJetal fea- togeth er the species in a genealogical arra ngc me nt, Incorp oratm g the ~elatlon
tures of the jaw and mi ddle ear th at identi fy it as a marnmal. 00 the other side, the ships establish ed in th e cladogram, but adding add~t.i onal data abo ut tim e and
eagle and Archaeopter yx a re united by po ssessing feath ers: and th e two of them
inferences abo ut descent, ' hi
join up with T. rex as Ornithischia, by virtue of their cranial and pelvic stru ctu re. Thus f Proconsul itself wasn't our anc esto r, then never th eless somet mg
Notice that we can eon struct thi s figure with out referen ee to th e faet th at we rather lik; it, as part of an early ape radia tion 15 million years ag~. was. The sabre-
have vastJy different ages rep resented. Th e cladogram is th us a ehar t of related ness, tooth tiger (order Carnivora) diverge d fro m the two repre sentatlves of ~he Orde~
not of ancestry. Th ere is no information provided on whe the r humans are likely to Primates per ha ps 60 million years ego, shortly after T. rex went ext1~ct. .An
be the deseendants of Proconsul, Proconsulis likcly to be the descendant ofh uma ns, Archaeopteryx, bein g a 150-mill ion-year-old feathe red reptilc, was certa mly in or
or b oth are descend ed from some thing eIse. close to the ance stry of the livin g blrds. d .
Once we add th c dime nsi n of ti me, in the secon d step, we are able to elim - . The th ird and final step involves fleshing out the phy logeny ~ith a apt ve
inate at least one of the altern atives. Sin ce Proconsul lived 17 million years ego, scenarios about th c keyfeatur es. divergences, and lfestyles of the amn:als.
e
w.
c~~
and humans have only been arou nd for the last 200,000 yea rs, it is hard to see see th e left sirle of the tree reflecting the arboreal adaptations of the primates, w
how Proconsu could be ou r descendants. 00 the other hand, we couId be ts humans b ecoming secondarily adap ted to the groun d. The oth er mamm als, the
direc t deseendants, or we might bo th be descended fro m anothe r undiscovered sab re-too th tlgers, b ecame specialized for grou nd predation, so~ewha.t conv~r.
species.
f gently with th e extinct reptil e T. rex. And the ani mals on th~ far n ght side of t le
cha rt developed feathers rathe r than scales, and took to the arr, . d
"Sabre-toothed Ty rannosau rus T his will be th e same strategy we use to un der stand th e human.fossiJ recor
Human Pnx:0715ul tiger" rex Eagle Archatopteryx
itself decide on the ta xa, map the relationship s based on sh ared denved features,
add tim e, and f1esh out th e scenario.

CL ASSIFY ING TH E LIV ING APES AN D

F SSIL ANCEST RS
As we already note d , dass ifieation is a linguistic device th at facilitates com~1Uni
catin among scientists, as well as being a Iramework th at i~p~es ~eanm~ful
order upon species in nature. The classificatic n we are adoptmg 10 thl~ bo ok l S a
traditiona l one, emphasizing th e adaptive divergence of humans-e-bipedal and
Fig ure 10.1. Relationships of six taxa.
 196 CHAPTE R 10 WHAT IS PALEOANT HROP O LO GY? References and Purther Readn g 197

reliant on tec hno logy and Janguage- from the other livin g m ernbers ofthe ir dade. Table 10.2. A cladistk dassicat ion, inwhich the extlnct bipedsare"hominins"(seeTable 7.1).
Co nse quen tly, we classify humans, o ur closest relatives, an d the living apes as
. shown in Table lO.!. SUPERFA MllY FAMllY SUBFAMllY TRIBE GENUS
This classlfcation is fairly sim ple (part Iy be cau se we are omitting al! the
Homfnotdea Hyb batidae Hylobotes
extin ct ape genera here), an d allow s us to recogni ze two ext inct gene ra within the Hcmntdae Ponginae Pongo
family Hom nidae, o r ho m ini ds: A ustralopithecus and Paranthropus. Here Aus- Hc mt nnae Gorillini Gorilla
tralopithecus is an anc estra l or stem gro up th at gave rise to Horno and to Paran. Panini Pan
Hom inini Ausrralopirhecus
thropus, and is itself par aphyletic (chapter 6). Using th is sch eme, we will tal k about
Poronrhropus
ou r extinct ance stors and clo se relatives as hominids, that is, as other m embers of Homo
th e famil y Hominidae.
It is important to no te, however, tha t th ere are other ways of classifying th ese
spe cies, which emphas ize other eleme nts . One way th at we pr esented in chapter 7,
an d curr ent ly enjoying a vog ue am on g sorne paleoa nth rop ologists an d textbooks, big-braine d species-c-as encoded in the c1 assic "australopith ecine" versus "h om i-
highlights two different principIes: th e gene tic sirnilarity of hurnan s and living nine," Unde r th e new syste m, we are already near the botto m of th e tax onomic
apes, an d the desir e to purge classiflcation of par aph yly. (See Table 10.2.) hierarchy, so pretty m uch th e o nly th in g we can do with th e "homini ns" is to list
Here, all th e living apes are placed in the fam ily Homini dae, to reflect th eir th eir genera and spe cies. And as we will see in cha pter 11. the prol iferatio n of sp e-
genetic sim ilarity. T he subfam ily Ponginae is used to separate th e Asian ora ngu tan des na mes can ma ke those lists ver y imposing.
from the th ree closely related Afr ican gene ra - ch imp anzees, gor fllas, and More important, though, is the assumption that a c1assification should privi-
humans-whic h are n ow c1ustered together as a subfamily. Th en a new level is lege the gene tic re1ationships over all others. Just because a biochemist can't tell a
int roduced, the tn be. to di stinguish the th ree gro ups of African genera from one human from a ch imp anzee, it doesn't m ean th at nobody can- you can tell th em
ano th er. Th us, human s and our extinct relatives are n ow di scu ssed as m em bers of apa rt quite easily, for erample, by lookng at their feet instead of at thei r genes. T he
the tri be Hominin i, th at is, as hominins. pur pose of a c1assification is to surnrna rize the overall relations hips of the anlma ls,
The difficulty with this classifcat on is that it is more cumbersom e, with the an d the tra ditional way seems to do a bett er job of it, given th e conflicting dem an d s
introd uction of a new Ievef it is inconsistent in defining the paraphyletic Pongidae and consequent compromses, than th e ne wer alternatives. Consequently,
out of existence, but retaining th e paraph yletic Australopithecus; and it privileges altho ugh m ost textbo oks today give the "ho m in in" classfcaton, th e grou p that
th e gen etic sim ilarity of the living genera over thcir ada p ve anatomical an d eco- published and pro m oted Ardipithecus as a human anc estor in 2009 very consplc-
logical differences. The livi ng great ap e th at stands ou t is th e first to have diverged uou sly called it a "h c minid " If you beleve that (1) the ecologicaI divergence oft he
(the orangutn ), no t th e st rangest {th e hum an ). huma n is zoo Iogically mor e significant th an the tempo ral divergence of the ora ng -
And ho w do we m ake sen se of the extinc t bran che s of OUT fam i1y tree? Unde r ut an ; and (2) the gen etic sim ilarity between hu m an and ape is out weighed by th c
the oIder system, which caIls this group of spec les "homnids,"we have sorne taxo- beha vio ral, an atomical, an d ecolo gical differences. then you should call it a "ho m-
nomic sp ace in which to theor ize th e relati o nship s among th ese extin ct species. inid" too. 1 do.
We cou ld, for example, juxtapose bipedal sma ll-braine d spe cies against biped al

REFERENCES AND F URT H ER REA DI N G

Tab le ~ ;).1. Tradi tiona l classlcaton , in which t he extincr genera of blp eds are catled
"hc mtmds" Butler; D. 2001. The bartle of Tugcn mus. Natu re 410:508- 509.
Cartm ill, M. 2002. Paleoanth ro pology: Science or mythologi cal ch rte r! Iournat 01 Anthro-
SUPERF AMllV FAMll Y GENUS pological Research 58:J83- 201.
Clark, G. A. and C. werme t. eds. 1997. Conceptual Issues in Human Origins Research,
Hom inoidea Hylobati dae Hylobares Ncw York : Walrer de Gruyter.
Pong idae Pongo Da lton, R. 2004 . Anth ropo logists ro cked by fossil access row, Nat ure 428:881.
Pan Delsle, R. 2007. Debating Humankinds Place in Nature, 1860-2000: The Nature 01 Poleoan-
Goril/a
Hominidae
thropology. Upper Saddle Rtvcr, NI: Prentice Hall.
Ausrralopit hecus
Dels on, E. 1. Tattersall, }. A. Van Couvering, and A. S. Brooks, eds. 2000. Encyc10pedia 01
Paranrhropus
Hamo Human Evo/urjan and Prehistory. 2nd ed. New York: GarJand.
Eckhardt, R. B. 2000. Human Palcobiology. New York: Cam bridge Un versty Press.
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Eld red ge, N . and I. Tatter sall. 1982. The Myths oJ Hu m an Evolut ion. New York: Co lumbia
Unlversry Press. C HA PTE R 11
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fifty years o f paleoa n th ropology Evoutonary A nth ropology 10:5-1 4.
Gbbons, A. 2003. Africans begin to ma ke their ma rk in human -orlgns rcsearch. Science
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Kalb, J. E. 2001. Adventures in the Bone Trade: The Race to Dscover Human Ancestors in
Eth op ia'sAjar Depression. New York: Copernicus.
The Dental and the Mental
Landau, M. 1993. Narratives of Human Bvoiuton. New Haven, CT: Yale Un iversity Press.
McHe nr y, H . M . 1994. Tempo and mode in h um an evolution . Proceedings of the National
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Mekle, W. E., F. C. Howel l, and N. G. Iablonsk, eds. 1996. Contemporary lssues in H uman Diversification of the Human Lineage)
Evoluti on. Watt is Sym pos um Series in anthropology, Memoir 21. San Francisco:
Cali fornia Academy of Scie nce s.
Morrell, V. 1995. A ncestral Passions: Th e Leakey Family and tbe Quest fo r Hu mankind's
Beginn ings. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Plbeam, D. R. 1969. Tert iary Pongidae of East Africa: Evolutionary relat ionships and tax- T H EME
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Schmalzer; S. 2008. The Peopes Peking Man : Popular Science an d Human Identity in Twen - The pro per classification o f ho min id fossils is presen tly unc lear, with estimates
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Schwar tz, J. H. 2003. Ano ther p ersp ective 0 0 hom in id di versity. Science30 1:763. empi rical. A produ ctive way to think abo ut the hu~an fossil record is at th e
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Shpm an, P. 198 1. Life H istory ofa Possil. Ca mbridge. MA : Harv ard Uni versity Press. in Homo. 'J

Simpson, G. G. 1951. The specles concepto Evoluton 5:285- 298.

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THE SHAD O W O F PILTDOW N MAN
In 1912. the history of the hum an species was being uncovered in Europe, The
Germans , Hclgians, and French all had their ancient fossls, from sites like La-
Chapclle-aux-Saints. Spy, and the Nean de r Valley itself, which gave its name to a
cur ious and anc icnt race of people, know n from th eir oddly shaped fossil remain s
and pri mitive tool s. While the sun had no t yet set 0 0 the British Empi re, the Brit-
ish were faced with beng a rem ote outpost of hum an prehistory. an eph eme ral
presen ce.
AH that cha nged with the announcement in 1912 that th e remains of
a "dawn man" had been foun d by an ama teur naturalist named Charles Dawson,
al a place called Piltd own, in England. He was neithe r fully m an nor fuUy
.. ape, re sembling the fcrmcr in his craniu m, and the latt er in his jawbone.
He combined a man-like bra in (and even left sorne to ols to cinch ir), with ape-
like teeth - a cunning yet viciou s adversa ry for any would -be attacker, Sorne
skepti cs doubted whe ther the jaw and the cranium actually belonged together,
bu! the foll o w in g year, mo re fo ssil s were discovered, wh ich seemed to settle the
m atter.
England was now a centra l player in the story of our species-not just
politic alIy and economically. but h isto rically as well. The schola rs mos t closely

199
I
 200 C HAP TER 11 T H E DEN TA L A N D T HE MENTA L
associated with Piltdown Man were honored, and severa! were knig htcd. An d the
story Piltdown Man told was th at the or igin of man , at least on the British Isles,
was led by brains and followed by brawn.
An d yet in the 1920s and 1930s, discoveries in Africa and Asia began to tell a
di fferen t story: th e earliest identifiable ape -men had the teeth of a man , yet a
primi tive brain! These were hard to reconcile with the morphology of Piltdown
Man . Either (a) the new discoveries were wrong and Piltdown Man was right, or
(b) Piltd own was wrong and the others were right, or (c) perhaps evolution from
th e apes occurred ind cpcndent1 y on differen t con tinents. Unsu rprisingly, m any
British sehol ars clung to (a) as long as they eould; a few German scholars opted
for (e). But ultimately, the weight of scientiflc evidenee by 1950 suggcsted every-
one could benefit by taking a closer and m ore critical Jook at Piltdown Man , as
suggested by (b).
Wh en they dd, they found that chem ically, th e skull and jaw appea red to be
of diffcrenr ages: that the brown paint on one of the teeth to ma ke it look like a
fossil was peelng off; and that the ma rks left by filing down the molar teeth cou ld
clearly b e seen.
To thi s day we don't know who pulled il off or why, althou gh ma ny accusa -
tions have been lcveled th rough the years. It m ight even have begun as a pu blicity
stunt for a novel called The Lost World, published by the local celcbrity autho r, Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle, at the same time as th e discovery of Piltd own Man-and
whic h feature~ conversations abou t scientific fraud and a flght between people
and ferocious ape -me n. But regarding Piltdown Man as a whodunit misses the
impo rta nt point. It was successful because t played to nation alstc expectations,
because the seho lars becam e too heavily tnvcsted in the specimen lo regard it
skeptically, and because no body dared to ch allenge th e auth or lttcs. And m ost
importantIy, it sent the scholarIy community thinking incorrectly about human
origins for sever al dccades.
The story ofhow our speci es arase is predicated on kn owledgc of (1) ou r dif-
ferences from the apes, (2) the order in which th ey evolved, and (3) their plausible
s~rvival value for OUT ances tcrs. Different scholars have empha sized various
aspects of our differcnces from the ape s as central themes of th eir particular story
of our biohistori cal divergence from the apes. While thi s gves pa leoanthro pology
a strong flavor ofconnect the dots," it is imp ortant to appreciate tha t th e position
ofthe dots constrains the pictu re we can draw.
We now know-or at Jeas: we are pretty sure-e-tha t bipedalism was the first
detee tably hum an trait to em erge in OUT an cestors. ''''hy? Simply because creatures
with teeth l.ike apes, bra ins Iike apes, and the pelvis and legs of a person were alive
between 3 and 4 m ilJ ion years ago; an d th ere is a lot ofevidenc e fcr the m. Hut there
is no eviden ce for th c existen ce of a eont emp oraneous creatu re with the brains of
peo ple, but the teeth and legs of apes. Th e d iscovery ofsuch a ereatu re-sou nding
rather Jke Piltdown Man !-would require us to rcthink our scenarios of hum an
evolut ion . But in the absen ee of such a discovery, the seena rios wc no w discuss are
tho se in which biped alism leads th e way.
A Homind Origin 201
A HOMINID ORIGIN
The living apes are but a tiny relie of a widespread radiation ofbrachialing apes of
the Mioeene. Apparent ly, howcver, the forest was a less conducive environm ent to
the fossilization pro cess than the drier open savanna. Thus, the record of the latest
Mocene, whe n on e group of anima ls became habitually bpedal , and traveled over
long tracts of ground , rat her th an excIusively through th e trees, is very heavily
biased in their direction. In fact, we have virt ua lly no fossil record of the livin g
apes. WhiJe a literal reading of these data might imp ly to a ereationist that hum an s
had evolved , but apes were specially crea tea, we will instea d regard th is absence of
data as an artifact of preservation.
On e difficulty in tryin g to find th e earliest evide ncc ofbipedalism is th at we
don't know preciscly what dir eetly precede d bipe dalism. As we obser ved in chap -
ter 7, if humans, chimpan zees, and gor illas are equally closcly related, and each
shares an intimate bit of biological h istory with the ot her, th en we can u nder-
stand the fact th at chimpanzees and gorillas both kn uekle-walk as a u nique bit of
th eir shar ed an cestr y, and not necessarily as a precurso r ofhominid bipedalism.
But if on the other hand , the radical interpretation o f the gene tic data is righ t,
and humans and ch irnpanzees are eaeh others' closes t relative s, then kn uckle-
walkin g in ch imps an dgor illas is harder to m ake sense of. Eith er th e tr ait evolved
sepa rately in both lineages, or else it was th e an cestral condition out of whic h
bipeda lism arose in the hominids, an d was passvely retained in chimps and
goriIJas.
Th e three late Miocene candidates for early human ancestry-Sahelanthropus.
Orrorin, and Ardipithecus- are all complex in their own ways. Ori gin al1y th ou ght
to resemble th e younger and better-kn own A ustralopithecus very closely, A rdip i-
th ecus was givcn its own genus name sho rtly after its original publ ication. Th e
fossil genus is officially known from assort d teeth, even sorne deciduous, and
misc elIaneous po stcrani a, includi ng a bit of the clavicle or collarbone, hu merus,
and a toe . But th is is just a tant alizing morsel, since a Jarge par t of an Ardipith eeus
skeleton was found in late 1994, bu t was on ly subm itted for publication in 2009,
having previously been seen by only a select hand ful of researchers.
Conseque ntly, Ardipithccus is a bit more eni gmatic than it has a right to be.
Sorne scho lars were mi ning the published repo rts for clues, like old Beatles album s.
Did they name it Ardpithecus because they knew it was ap e Iike, rather th an on th e
human line (pit hekos is Greek for ar e; anthropos for human)? Was th eir attemp t to
infer bpe da l sm from difficult bones just another exampl e of overreaching from
the data, or did they know tha t thc unpublished Ardipi thecus parts show it more
clearly?
Thi s mueh we do know : Two Ethio pian localities have yielded A rdipitheeus
remains about a mill ion years apart, su fficiently similar to one ano ther that
researehe rs initialIy desgneted the m as differcnt subspeces , a category rarely used
in paleoanth ropo logy. lndeed, some challenge wh eth er it should even be used in
thc systcmatics of living species! Consequen tly, a few years Iater; they cha nged the
 202 CH APT ER 11 THE DEN TAL AND T HE MEN TAL
dstncton to the species level. And when the skeleton was finalIy revealed in
2009, its most interesting features appeared to be a very ape-like foot, and a lack of
sexual dimorphism in the canine teeth, perhap s suggesting that social changes
preceded the emergence of obligate bipedalism-or else that there was parallel
evolution in different ape lineages for the reduction of canine dimorphism.
DI SCOVERY OF THE AUSTRALO P IT HECINES
If we assurnc bipcdali srn only evolved in the African ape dade once, then we can
put all bipeds in our own subclade, which we are designating the family Homini -
dae , or hominids. We will recognize three groups, which we wlll designate as
gene ra, within the horninid s. These are the genus A ustralopithecus, the stem
group of bpedel apes; the genus Paranthropus; one group of the ir descendan ts,
who developed hypert rophic specialization s of the teeth and jaws; and Horno. the
other gro up of descen dants, who developed hypertrophic specializations of the
brai n. Following traditional taxonomic pr aetice, we will distin guish the genera
A ustralopithecus and Paranthropus from Horno at the subfamily level (Australo-
pithecinae, as oppo sed to Homininae) and refer to the Icrm er two genera as
australop ithecines.
The australopithecines frsr carne lo light in 1924, when workers for South
Africa's railroad company blasted a fossil skull from the waUof a nea rby lirnestone
cave at a place called Taungs; a geologist from the University of the Witwatersrand
brought It to the ]ohan nesburg heme of his anatomy eolleague, Raymond Dart.
Dart named his fossil Australopithecus afrcanus, or "southern ape of Africa"-
thus emphasizing ts ape-like qualities, but promoting It as a "missing link"
between people and apes. He published the fossll in the journa l Nature in 1925,
and noted that the vertical position of the brainstem ind icated that it carr ied itself
upright. More impor tantly, however, the rear teeth were very large, and thc Iront
teet h, includin g the canine teerh, were very small. This is not the pattem we find
in living apea. Most of its teeth were decidu ous, and only the first adult molar had
erupred. However, for a hu man child at th at stage of dental maturity-perhaps 6
years of age-its brain was quite small, and seemed to be more Jke a young ape's
in size, lt seemed lo present a brain like that of an ape joined to teeth like those of
a human.
SignificantIy, this was the opposrrc suite of fealur es that seemed to be present
in Plrdown Man- which spo rted an apish jaw and a humanis h skull. It was over a
decade before mo re fossils like the Taung Child would be found, by a Scottish pale-
ontologist in South Africa named Robcrt Broom. Broom was a devout Christian.
who believed in the direet intervention of good and bad angels in the history of life
on earth : but he did not let his faith interfere with his study of evolution. Between
, AUSTRA LOPI T HECUS : BASAL BIP EDS
1936 and 1947, Broom and his colleagues drilled in Iimestone caves in South
frica, and found remains of adult A ustralopithecus specimens. Therc appeared 10
be two kinds of austraIopithecines: one at cave sites known as Sterkfontein and
Makapansgat, and anoth er at cave sites called Swartk.rans and Kromdraai.
Australopitheeus: Basal Bipeds 203
A visit to South Africa by the American paIeontologist William King Grcgory
began to swing seholarlyopin ion in favor of A ustralopithecus, although it took the
British anoth er deeade before comi ng around. Broom published a detailed schol-
arly mono graph on thefossils in 1946, and the great Oxford anatomist, Wilfrid E.
Le Gros Clark, visited South Africa to see the specimens for hlmself in 1947. Even
the aged anatomist Sir Arthur Keith, who had helped establish his reputation on
Piltdown Man, carne around to accepting Australopithecus as a human ancestor.
By the early 1950s, the only thing standing in the way of a new clear und er-
standing of human evolution , centered on African prehistory, was Piltdown Man.
A reanalysis now showed the brown paint peeling off the canine tooth and the
mark s where the teeth had been filed: and finalIy, a cherncal anaIysis of the
remains indicated that they were from two different organisms. Clearly Pltdown
Man had been a hoax from start to finish, and was no longer a piece of the
puzzle- except as a eautionary tale about how easily even scientists can be
fooled when their expeetations and deologcs coincide with the data they are
presented with .
Attention now shifted to Africa as the "cradle of humanry" where Lous and
Mary Leakey had been searching for hominid fossils for dccades at Olduvai Gorge,
Tanzania. In 1959, their patience was rewarded with Mary's discovery of "Zinj"
(short for "Z injanthropus boisei"), a nearly complete skull, well-dated to 1.8 mil-
lion years ago, and similar in form to the australopithecines known from Swart-
krans and Kromd raai in South Africa. Other dscovertes soon followed, paralleling
to a large extent the South African fossils. The East Afriean fossls, however, had
the advantage ofnot eoming out oflimestone blocks from cave walls, but ofbeing,
rather, embedd cd in softcr matrix , with clear contextuaI relationships to other fos-
sils found, and in dateable sedimen ts.
Other majar exeavations began in Kenya, Eth iopia, and other areas along the
geological fault known as "The Great Rift Valley,' and eontinue to the present day.
Fossils are also being found again in South Africa, and the recovery of human
ancestry is a source of national pride for the new govern rnent of South Africa. The
South African material has tended to be overshadowed by the East African mate -
rial because the latter are more reliabIy dated, correlated with one another , and
often better preserved. Ncvertheless, in the 1990s, an older scction of the Sterkfon ~
tein cave yelded a cranium and skeleton of Australopithecus, probably about 3.5
million years oId. Lke Ardipithecus (unfortunately), it has been a long time in
bcing fuHy described , but is nicknamed "Little Poot" and may well play a consid-
erable role in future understandin gs of human evolution.
The earliest unambiguous evidence for bipedalism Is about 4.2 miUion years old.
from the Kenyan Austra/opithecus anamensis. At th e Tanzanian site of Laetcli,
several different kinds of anim als walked through sorne shallow thick mud,
composed of a mixture of rain and vo1canic ash, about 3.8 million years ago.
 204 C HA PT ER 1 1 T HE DEN TA L AND T HE MENTAL
The mixture hardened and preserved their footprint s; and they were discovered by
a team led by Mary Leakey in 1978. Among the footprints were those oftwo hom -
inids, a large one and a small one, walkng slde-by-stde, whose feet left the imprints
of a heel, arch, ball, and enlarged and aligned bgtoe-all hallmarks ofhipedalism;
and no eviden ce of forelimbs touching the groun d. 1 ten d to think that the early
homini ds waIking through the vok anic ash had not yet evolved language, for f
they had, they might have paid attention to the frenzied shouts of their conspe-
cifics: "Tbere's a volcano erupting! Run for your Ife!'
The bad news is that there are no Australopithecus fossils known from pre-
cisely that agc, for A. an amensis is about half a million years older, and A. ofarenss
is about half a million years younger. So who made the footprints?: Something
rather like them . Perh aps something very much Iike the remains discovered by a
French team in Chad- the jaws of an early australopithecine that lived about 3.5
million years ago, extendi ng the range of the group farther north and farthe r west
than had pr eviously becn known, and still quite early in the history of this lineage.
In the mid- 1970s, a French-American team led by Yves Coppens was working
in Ethiopia, when graduare student Donald Iohanson found a knee joint that gave
clear indieations of having come from a biped. They soon found bits and pieces of
several ind ividuals, which they nicknamed "The First Pamily": and finally. about
40% of the ske1eton of a single individual, whom they nicknamed "Lucy."
At 3.2 million years of age, Luey was notable for being (into the 1980s) the
e1earest and oIdest evidence of bipedalism, and therefore, of the origin of the
human lineage. Altho ugh the body part s of australopithecines were already
known -for example, a foot from Olduvai Gorge, and a pelvis and vertebrae from
Sterkfontein- Luey was the earliest ind icator of what the parts of a single individ -
ual looked Iike.
Only from th e parts of a single ind ividual can you tell body proportions, for
example. Whereas a mod ero human has long legs relative to arm s, and an ar e has
long arms relative to legs, how do you know where an australopithecine falls Ir all
you have are arm bon es and leg bones from individuals of various sizcs? With
Lucy. that situation became rapidly d arificd: She had re1ativcly long arms and
short legs.I ke an apeo
In oth er ways, however, notably in the stru cture and ocientation of her knees
and pelvis, we can tell she walked upr ght, unlike any ape, and rather like uso
Indeed, Lucy is a cIassic "missing link"- if by that term we mean something that
partakes of both ape and human qualities. In this way. she remndsus that she is,
all told, unlike any creature we are intimately familiar with.
At 3 ~ feet tall, Lucy is made of the srnallest parts known of her species, Aus-
tralopithecus afarenss. It is pr incipal1y on this basis that we regard her as a female;
grven what we kno w of primate biology. if shc were a maleothere wouId have to be
even smaller; as yet undiscovered, members of the species. But her pelvis. which
would give unamblguous signals ofher sex if she were fully hum an. gives no indi-
cation that she was female. Why not? The mod een woman's pelvis is the result of a
compromise between the bomechanics of bipedal walking and the Iogistics of
Australopithecus: Basal Bipeds 205
passng a bg-headed baby through the pelvic can al. But Lucy faced no such obstet-
rical dilemma, for her babes, like her, were small-headed; consequently what we
just describ ed as a structural compromise had not yet been worked out, for it "las
not necessary. Lucy's pelvis is that of a biped, pure and simple; our own pelvcs are
the ones that have been otherwise compromised.
What Lucy does show dearly is that the divergenee of human s from apes was
not a continuous transformation of the whole body. Rather, it took place pecc-
meal. and the earliest species of fossil hominids possessed suites of characters that
were partly ape, partly human, and partly intcrmediate. Thus Australopithccus af a -
rensis shows a mosaie of features (so, of cour se, did Pltdown Man-since that is
what we would expect lo find!). In addition to the apelike limb proportions, Lucy
had an apelike brain; but her molar teeth were large and had thick enamel, like
those ofhumans. Her pelvis and knee were decidedly likc those ofhumans, but hcr
toes and fingcrs were long and eurved like an apes, and her ribcage was conical,
neither precisely Iike k.nown apes nor humans.
Among these basal australopithecines we should also nclude the fossil skull
called "Keny anthropus platy ops" found near Lake Turkana in 1999 and dated to 3.5
million years. Althou gh broken into hundreds of small bits. it is cIearly the head of
a small-brained biped with small front teeth and large rear teeth. The significance
of its pecularly flat face remains uncertain. .
A ustralopith ecus afr icanus has become some thing of a problem foc obsessive
taxonomists and crcationists, each of whom has their own difficulty in coping
wth the morphologieal continuities between its ancestor, Australopithecus aforen-
ss, and its descend ant genera. Paranthropus and Horno. For the taxonomlsts, the
physical inte rmediacy of A. africanus places a pre mium on intuition in allocating
individual specimens, and makes it difficult to define the species in terms of its
own un ique derived traits-both of which are necessary. For creationists, the
physical intermediacy of A. africanus seems to be anothe r classic example of what
they mainta in did not and could not happen- the transformation of a species with
one set of physical features into another species with another sct of physieal fea-
tures, over a span of geological time.
Over the course of their biological hstor y, the early bipedal australopithe-
cines appear to have become more specialized in two different drecnons: dental
and mental. Recent studies have shown that this evolutionary crossroads may have
been established with a relatively simple genetic switch. Nevertbel ess. both sets of
specializations enabled their bearers to expIoit new sources of food, or make more
efficient use of old knds of food resources, as the climate of Africa underwent a
prolonged period of cooJing, and grassIands expanded at the expense oCforests.
Tho sc hom inids that developed dental adaptatlons cmphasized a great expansion
of the molar teeth, and the associated bon es and muscles, which pcrm itted them
to crack and grind down hard foods, like nuts and seeds, which are rarclvexploited
by primate s because of their hardness. And those that developed mental adapta-
tions emphasized non-biological ways of broa dening the Pleistoceno smorgas-
bord -by cutting. collecting, and cooking.
 206 CHA PTER 11 TH E D EN TA L A ND T HE M ENTAL
Bot h of these adaptations were present to sorne extent in the ba sal aus tra lo-
pithecines, who had large molars and broad cheekbones to frame the ir chewi ng
rnuscles and also had at least the cognitive capacities of chimpanzees, who can use
natural objects as tools in vario us ways, and even crack nuts with stones. Indeed, a
species discovered and named in the late 1990s, A ustralopithecus garh i, shows ele-
ments of both of those sp ecializations at about 2.5 m illion years. li s teeth He in
between the de ntally specialized "robust' australopit hecines and the earlier basal
or "gracle" australopithecines; an d it seems to have left evidence of having used
stone tools on gazelle bone s.
PARANTHROPUS-THE D ENTAL ADA PTATI ON
Robe rt Bro om recogn zed by the late 1930s that there were two kinds of "ap e-m en"
coming out of the lim esto ne qu arri es in South Africa: one of th ese had very large
cheek teet h , and had eve n co-opted the prem olars to become esse nt ially more
molars, an d had very wide cheekbones to accommoda te the chewing m useles that
passed th rough th em, and even had a ridge of bone down the m idlin e of its head
for the se strong, th ick che wing m uscles to be attac hed. When Louis Leakey got a
look in 1959 at tite fossil his wfe Mar y h ad d iscovered-with a com plete set of
upper dent ition - h e dubbed it "N utcracker Man ."
We now follow Broom in recognizing it as occ upyi ng a fundam ent alIy differ-
ent ecologica l niche than ou r own an cestors occup ied. Its brain was sJightly lar ger
tha n a chmpanzee's, but its principal mean s of acquiring the necessities of life
involved rather less chewing them over, and rath er more simp ly che wing them.
Th ere is no doubt that it was bpedal, although n o associated skclcto ns have yet
been able to tell us about its overall body propor tio ns.
Perhaps the mo st int er esti ng thin g about th e dental ad apt ations of Paranthro-
pus hes in whcre it falls on a ch impanzee-to-hum an axis. Relative to ch lmpanzees,
hum ans h avc thi cke r enamel on th eir molars, much smalle r can ine teeth, and
smalle- in cisors as well, indicating a general overall emphasis on th e back teeth
relative to th e front teeth. O n such a scale, Paranthropus comes out as more human
than human s: it has sma Uer can nes, smaller incisors, thic ker molar enamel, and a
mu ch greale r em phasis on the rear teeth . Th is group took one aspect o the
hum an.ape differences an d ran with t, qu ite successful ly; for about a m illion
years.
The Paronth ropus fossls were found lime stone caves at Swartk rans and
Kro mdraai. and thu s faced the sam e problem s of dating and associalio n that the
A ustralopithecus fossils from Sterkfontei n and Makapansgal did . It was quickly
clear, however, that th e collection sorted into two related , but different, gro ups on
thc basis of their teeth . A ustralopithecus had biggcr back rceth th an we do, but v.'3 S
nevcrth eless hum bled by Paranthrop us. At rou ghly th e same body size as Australo-
pthecus, Paranthropus had immense rear teeth , th e m uscle s to drive th em, and th e
jaws to hold them. Australopthecus, with its sm aller and less mu scle-bou nd h ead
and facc, carne to be called "gracle", an d Paran thropus to be called "robust." These-
Paranthropus- The Dental Adaptation 207
however, are relative terrn s, and both of these forms are quite "robust" when com-
pared to ou r own direct anc estors of the genus Horno. The earlest representative
of this lineage is VVT l i ODO, more colloqu ially known as "the Black Skull" for the
literal color of the fossl, due to the mangan ese in the grou nd. At 2.6 million years
of age, it ha s a very promine nt set of crests to anchor its ch ewing rnu scles, showi ng
that the basic specialization was establish ed early in the history of th is lineage. Its
face juts out farth er th an th e faces of its descendants, and th e base of its skull is
very similar to th at of the early austra lopithecines; but the sh ape of the cheeks and
size and streng th of the chewing ma chinery place it squarely in the Paranth ropu s
lineage.
. Ho w dd Paranthropus live? The den tal emph asis on the grindin g tccth tells us
that it was probably exploiting a food source that other apcs onl y rarely rely on:
nuts and seeds . These are foods th at are sma ll and well prot ected. and conse-
qu en tly are difficult to extract efficien tly. It takcs a lot of wo rk for relatively .little
reward; you're far be tter off Iying back and munching on a stalk of celery, like a
gorilla. TIte em phasis on the molars tha t characterized a robu st australopith.e-
cine-the sze, the thid: ness ofthe ena me l, and th e ma ssive jaw mu scles-mad e ItS
mou th into a walkl ng mort ar and pestle. Th is certanly expan de d the ran ge of
foods it could cope with, an d presumably explains its million-a nd-a-half-yea r sur-
vival as a human co usin.
The other th ing t he robus t aust ralopithecine teeth tell us is th at its socia l orga-
nization may bave been quite differen t fro m th ose of other livin g apc s-perh aps in
a lineage stretching as far back as Ardipithecus. O the r apes h ave extensive degrees
of sexual di morp h ism in the cani ne teeth , with males ha ving mu ch larger ones
than fernales, ba ring the m in th reat displays, and using them in fights. It is hard to
imagine how the teeth of a robu st australop itheci ne could have been used in th at
way- its can ine s were neither very di m orphic nor int imid ating, and you would
have to loo k far too deeply nto its mo uth to be intimidate d by its molars. T he
sexual dimo rph ism b eleved lo be represented by com paring the presum ptively
fema le skulls (Irom Drim olen in South Africa, and fro m Kenya) to the other
robust australopithec ine skulls combines no canine dimor phism with a modest
amount of dimorp h ism in body size (as reflected in face slze). Th is is the patte rn
we see in modern humans wh en we com pa re them to ape s.
Consequentl y; whatever com petition for mates occurr ed in these hom in ids
woul d have to have been of a very different order than wh at we see in othe r species
of apes. In moder n humans, th at comp etition is played out symbolical1y-i n terms
of wealth, beauty, status, rep utation , farn ly, body decora tion , the institution o
marri age, an d so on. But wha t of small-brained hornnids, who presumably lacked
the cultu ral st ru ctu re on which to make th ese kn ds of non-n atural distinctions
and form th ese kinds of nun -gen eti c bond s!
We can deduce th at com petition for mates prob ably assumed a form different
from tha t of the living apes, and from our own symbolizcd patt ero as well, and
thu s was quite po ssibly unrecognizable. Pcrhaps th e robust aust ralop ithecines
were pri ncipally m on ogamous and pair bonded , th us redu cing co mpe tit ion for
 208 C HA P T ER 11 T HE DE NT AL A ND TH E M EN TAL
mates. like mod ero gbbons, who also have little dimorphism of the canine teeth
(alth ough th eirs are lon g and sharp in bo th sexes!). Or perhaps the rob ust austra-
lop ith ecin es were highl y an d indi scr imin ately promi scuou s, which would tend to
reduce classic compet ition for mat es from th e oth er dire ctio n. Or perhaps they
were, like bo nob os-who are less sexually dimorphic than chimp anzees- fem ale
bonded, and able to discourage aggression on the part of any part icular physically
large male.
Did they rnake toolst We tend not to thi nk of them as toolmakers (seebelow),
bUI there is no reason why they couldn't have used teehnology as part of their
adaptve repertoire as well. Indee d, a carefu l examination of the hand bone s unam-
biguously assocated with robus t austra lopithecine teeth show s that the ir degree of
ma nual dexterity was proba bly no less than that of the smarter contemporaneous
hominids. And certainly the discovery of butchered gazelle bones with the early
australopithecine A. garhj lends addtonal suppo rt to the idea that dl fferent hom-
inid Ineages relied on too ls, even with bra ns one -third th e size of ours.
But after abo ut 1.2 million years ago, th e teeth and tool s of Paranthropus were
insufficient to withsta nd the competition from teehn ology-rcliant cousins-or
perhaps from a more distant nut- and -seed -eatlng specialist species-and they
beeam e extinct.
EA RLY HO MO : THE MENTAL ADA PTATION
In con trast to Paranthropus, another group of austr alopitheeines developed spe-
cializations useful in food proeessing. These specializations were rooted in the size
and stru ctu re of th eir bra in, nearly twice as large as that of the ir cousins. In add-
tion to the ph ysical con tinuity that exists between Au stralopithecus af ricanus and
the robust Iineage, there is also physieal continuity betwee n Australopithecus ojr-
canus and the org ns of th e genus Horno. This is probably most easily seco in the
taxonomic allocation of key specimens, whic h have oeeasionally lcapt frcm the
cate gory "very gracile australopith eclne" to "early represent ative of the genus
Horno" or viee versa. The recent discovery of th e 1.9 million year old South Afri-
ean species Australopithecus sediba seems to be such an an atomi cal intermediate,
pro d ucing precisely the taxonom ie eonfus ion we would expe ct to encoun ter tf
early Australopithecus bifureated and was ancestral to two d ifferent lineages.
Th e earliest indication s of the genus Horno seem to occur about 2.5 million
years ago in East frica, abo ut the same time and place as th e earliest recognizable
sto ne too Is. While it is reasonable to associate these two facts causally, we must
also be wary of the ehau vinism it involves.
The earliest recognizable stone tools are kno wn as Oldowan, and consist only
of sma ll rocks 00 which another rack ha s been used to knoek off a few plcccs, thu s
form ing a sharp edge. lt's not much, and eertainly not likely to afford mu ch protec-
on fro m a leopardo but distinctly dfferent from naturally form ed broken rocks.
When the Leakeys publishcd the Zi njanthropus skull in 1959, they attr ibuted the
Oldowan to ols to the only hom inid th ey knew there, the robust austra lop ithecin e.
EarIy Horno: Th e Mental Adaptation 209
Five years later; they took the tooIs away from "Zinj" and attr ibuted them instead
to the new species Horno habilis.
Th e prin cipal working assumptions were th at (1) there was oniy one spectes
making the tools, an d (2) it must h ave been the one most Iike ou rselves (the one
with a smaller face an d larger brain ). The second assumption is pre dicated on the
frst, and it is not elear that th e first is necessarily true, either arch aeologically or
anatomieaJIy. yve are consequen tly obliged to remain open to the po ssibility that
several different hom inid species saw merit in h tting stones together to form
sharp edges, augmenti ng their sharpened bone shafts and stcks, wh ich are harder
to identify in the fossil record , but were probably used as well.
And what dd they do with th ese toolst: Anything they could, Ikc one uses a
Swtss Army knfe. While there might well have been sorne advantage in huntin g oc
flght ing, the greate r value was probably in food procu rement (such as digging for
roots and tubers), and pro cessing (such as slicing tendons to remove meat from a
carcass).
From about 2.4 to 1.8 million years ago. we find the co-occu rrence, th en, of
physically diverse bipedaI primates, with larger brains th an austr alopithecines and
a redu eed chewing epparatus. Th ese we collectively eall "early Horno." and
alth ough the y could be split into a number of different specie s, it is simplest to
identify one broad evolution ary lineage with anatom ical continuity to earlier aus-
tralopithecines, an d call it Horno habilis, and ano ther with cont inuity to later
Hornoerectus. and call it Horno ergaster. Wh eth er th ese are really even two sepa
rate species eomparable to two closely related living spectcs, lkc Pan troglodytes
and Pan paniscus, is of course ope n to considerable debate- wh ieh emph asizes
again that th e basic d assifieation of extin ct hom inid s is itself theor y laden , for it
encocles an interpretation of their diversity, ecology, and evolution.
The mos t famous specirnen of the Horno hub lis lin eage is undoubtedly
ER-1470, found in 19i2 by Bernard Ngcnco, a member of Richard Leakey's expe
ditlon, workin g on th e eastern side of Lake Turkana in Kenya. While the skull is
vcry complete. it was nevertheless reconstructed from literaliy hundreds of tiny
pieces, and has always been secn as mo rphologicalIy rather uniqu e, with a large
brain (about 735 ce, about half the size of ours) and an od d, flat faee. Th e following
year their colleague Kamoya Kimeu found skull ER-1813. in m any ways a better
fossil-more an atomically repre s- -irative of the llneage, and mor e intact oand with
a brain only abo ut600 cc. Th is gro llp of fosstls also in eludes m aterial fro m Olduva
Gorge and other East African sites, as well as material or igin ally called "Telanthro-
pus" from South Africa.
Th e mo st interesting featu re ofthis lineage is undoubtedly its facial reduction
and cranial inerease (compared wit h the australopithecines). but eoupl ed with th e
Iirnb proportions of the australopithecines-Ion g arms and short legs. Th is mea-
surem ent req u ires the association of teeth for identification of the species, and
enough of th e leg and arm from the same body to estimate the limb prop ortions;
bu t in the few specimens that perm it th s, they seem to place Horn o habilis with thc
apes and australopithecines.
 210 C HA PTER 11 . T HE DE NTAL A ND T HE ME NTA L
Horno ergaster, however; is a different story, The 1974 discovery of ER-3733,
also by Bernard Ngeneo , firmly established th c idea that about 1.S million years
ago th ere werc several lineag es ofh ominids coexisting, whch simply couldnot be
accornmodated within a single specles, however broadly conceptualized. As long
as the onl y k.nown hominids were a vcry robus t one (Paranthropus boisei) and a
very gracile one (Horno habilis), we could still retain the idea of a single lineage
existing at the time, even with a ridicuIously high level of musculoskeletal sexual
dimorphism and a weird pattern of canine dimorphism. SkuU ER-3733, however;
had a cran ial capacity of abou t 850 ce, cons ider ably larger than any prcviousIy
known skull of that age, and a somewhat elongated shape, remini scent of Horno
erectus a million years later. Th is was identi cal to ncither of the known forms, and
th ereforc, unless the re werc three sexes of hominid s in East Afr ica at the time, it
made th e case for taxo nomic diversity.
The clear establishm ent of taxonomic diversity coexisting in the hom inid
lineage mad e it impo ssible to see hu man evolut ion as a linear aseent from th e apes.
Rather than looking like a bamboo shoot, th e prehi stor y of the human specics
began to appear like a bush, as we now see rt , with different adaptive surv ival strat-
egies evolvng in different related lineages. (Of coursc, th e degree of "bushlness"
varies with th e am ount of taxo nomic splitting one is inclin ed to invoke; and while
there are representation s of Pleistocene hom inid diversity as bushy as a berry
farro, it is genera lly good in science to ere on the side of conservatism.)
Another fossil skull, ER-3883.looked qui te similar lo ER-3733. but in 1984,
Richard Leakey's field assistan t Kamcya Kimeu found the first part ofthe bg prize:
from a site called Nariokotome, on the western sirle of Lake Turkana, a nearly
complete skeleton of an adolesee nt male who lived and died about 1.6 mllon
years ego. Wh ile it has never attained the cult status of Luey or ER-147, the skel-
eton known as WT-15000 is arguabl y the best fossil of the m all.
Where Lucy stood 3Y fcet tan about 3.2 million years ego, scarcely a million
and a half years later th e Nario kotome Roy stood about two fcet taller. Although
Lucywas female and Narioko tome was male, he was also not tuUy grown. either-
he had fresh second molars, an d unerup ted third molars: ao upper eani ne toolh in
th e pro cess oferupting; and bon e shafts not yet fused to th eir epiphyses, or tips-
all telJing us he was an adolescent, perhaps 12 ycars oId. Fu li ~ ' grown. we can see
the Nariokotome Bey as a strapping Pleistocen o stx footer;
Even more striking than hs absoluto size, however, are th e propor tions of his
limbs. Whereas earlier biped s appea r to have had long arms ami short legs, a reten-
tion from apehood , Horno a paster has developed th e long legs and shor t arms of a
,, . human. Obviously biped al primates got along well OH two legs for million s of years
with long arm s, and the distribution of their body weight ma king them a bit top
heavy. \Vhy the change ? Perhaps this physical chan ge involves the incorporation of
running, especially over long distances, into the homnid locomotory rupertoire
and concom itant fine tun ing ofth e body lo facilitate it. We may also not e that long,
heavy, muscular arms are probably less bcn eflcial for the finc -scale m anipulation
of natural objects that will becom e the ha Ilmark of th is lineage's adaptive strategy,
The Beginning of Cultural Evoluton 211
witile each specific body part has m inar features that enable us to see it wasn't
Irom a modern human. the skeleton neverth eless looks much more familiar tha n
Lucy's, and each part closcly approximates the hum an form in both relative and
absolu te size and form. Ind ecd, th e Nariokotome Boy's head is proba bly his mos t
distinctively d fferent partowith a face jutt ing forward , no forehead te speak of a
ridge ofbone looking like eyebrows, and a brain just over half the size of a modero
human's (in a nearly full-sized body, of cou rse).
The forward setting of the jaws, or prognathism, provides the most striking
contrast to the modern face. The browridge, or supraorbital tor us, is a conse-
quence of th e rc1ation s bet ween th e size of the face and the forehead. We see th ese
featur es in diverse forms throughout human ancestr y, and even variably in mod -
cm peop le (altho ugh these are structural convergences, not thr owbacks!).
Perhaps the most notable aspect of the posteranial skeleton is thc fact that ,
while being the size of a. mod ero human, he was not ene rvated like one. The spinal
cord passing th rough bis vert ebral column was somc what narrower than a mod-
ern human's, and it has been suggested that his mot or skills were comparably
poorly developed. Indeed, pe rhaps something as basically hum an as the ability to
coordinare brcathlng with speaki ng might have been comp romised in a species
whosc central nervous system was litcrally smaller th an a human's at the same
body size.
A less complete skeleton , ER1808, also found by Kamoya Kimeu, has skeletal
lesion s consi stent with a form of food poisoning. These bone lesions, which healed
overoare argued to be the result of consurning a mas sive dose ofVitamin A, which
is concen trated in the liver of carn ivorous animals. The story read into these bones
is one of experimentation with camivory, and care for the sick.
TH E Il EGI NNI NG OF CULTURAL EVO LUTl O N
About 2.6 million ycars ago, early hom inids crossed a thr eshold no species had
before. In addit ion to modi fying soft, perishable objects to aid in food proc ure-
ment and processing , and in aggressive displays and per sonal defen se, they began
to m odify ha rd, permanent objects as well. These early stone tools, know n as Old -
owan, are distingulshed by shape, but generalIy cluster in to two categories: th e
"flake" (a sma llish piece of rock with a sharp edgc, kno cked from a larger piece)
and the "core'' (rhe larger leftover ptece of rock, also with a sharp edge). Both were
probably used.
A bono bo nam ed Kan zi was taught lo make such Oldowan tools, but showed
little interest in using them (bonobos are not avid 10 0 1 uters in the wild). Early
African hominids, however, had taken such a keen interest in the possibilities .
inherent in the ir edged rocks that they began to carr y good ones with them over
fairly long distances, as can be seen by mapping where th e tools were found in
relation lo whc re th e raw m aterial carne from.
This marks th e point of divergence between paleontology and archaeolog y,
wherc the objec ts of study are no longer simply anatorn ical or biological, but
 2 12 CHAP TER 11 T HE D EN TA L AND T HE MENTA L
cultur al as well. In so rne ways, th ey rem ai n affiliated , since early in cu ltu ra l hi story
we will be ma king stro ng assoc iat ions be twee n par ticu lar typ es of tooIs an d pa r-
tic ular types of tooImak er s. Th is is a valuable assocla t lon , for example, at the
Kenyan site of Olorgesale, abo ut 0.7 m ilJion years old, whe re tools are very abun -
dant but ho m inid foss ils are very rareo
By about 1.6 million years ago. however, a d ifferent and novel ecologcal rela-
t ionsh ip began to for m oThe hominids who had been m aking th ese pebble tools
a
fo r m illion years began to do some thi ng a Iittle d ifferent to them - taking a ra ck
that began at, the y knocked tlakes off not just o ne sde, but off th e opposite sur-
face as well. These bifacial too ls required a bit mo re lab or than th eir pr edecessor s.
as well as a bit m ore for esight. It seem s to have been the first exam ple of m prove-
m en t: d oing wha t yo u've been doin g, 'but a bit m ore, a bit d iffere ntIy, and a bit
better. This will become the hall mark of cultural evolut ion.
Th is tech nol ogy is clearly an outgrowth of the Oldowan , but as Ma ry Leakey
originally noted, it connect s the Old owan to th e technology that will conquer
much of th e worId over the next million yea rs, t he Acheulian.
Begin ning about l A mill ion yea rs ago , hom ini ds began making a spe cial tri -
angu lar kind of bface , kn o wn to archaeologists (so mewha t pro blema tically) as a
"h andaxe" T he na me is u nfortunate , as it conj ures an image of a hom ini d holding
it by the butt en d and hacking d own at something. But the butr en d is sharpened
also, so if used in such a fashon, a hominid wo uId be more likely to lace rate th e
ha nd than to hack effect ively at anything. Quite possibly, the handaxe was a pre -
pared core, fro m wh ich many uniform and predic tab 1e sma ll flakes couId be made
whenever th ey carn e in handy-and those flakes were th e principa l tool s. In other
words, th e "handaxe" may not be wh at the ho mi nid set o ut to make, but was
mere1y a means to an end, the flakes- and what W<l S left over wh en the toolm akjng
was done.
Th e advantage would likely have been a faster and mo re reliable way to m ake
sim ple, sha rp too ls of a particular sh ape as ncc ded. And thi s cyclical pr occss,
wh ich we take for granted now-c-in novation, improvem ent, adoption -becomes
th e ba sis of a new kind of survivaI strategy. Thi s eco1ogical stratcgy of survivai via
technology pro du ced two basic patterns fo r anthropologists to confront.
Prst , changes in for ro or complexiry of th e too ls can be stu d icd largelv inde-
pendently of any aspects of the creatures t hat pro d uced th em. In other wo rds, th e
arti facts assum e their own d istinctive evolutionary changes, which can be tracked
wi thout recour se to cha ng es in th e biology of the makers. T his will be as true for
stu dying changes in the sty les of ch ipped ro cks as it is for stu dyi ng changes in the
stru cture of the air plane .
Seco nd, tech no logical evolu tion is progressive. Wherever we look, we find
ea rly too ls are m or e simple and cru de, and later ones are fine r and m ore effectve.
This is the area of cultur al change in wh ich variatio n is not equivalent, for sorne
technolog ies are better th an others (that is to say, they allow yo u to d o more rhngs
more effidentIy-but they still may contain other tra de-offs, such as the reiative
ease of d isposing of the wa stc products Df ston e to ols ver sus n uclear reactor s).
References and Further Reading 213
Why do we find this patternr Imagine two groups ofhom inids enco untering
one ano ther; with one possessing a superior technology. If th eir encounter is
peaceful, th en th e tools mi ght well give one group a long-term edge in survival and
rep roduct ion; o r th e othe r group ma y adopt th e new technology. Either way, the
bett er tech no logy is perpetuated . And if the encounter is aggressive, who is more
Iikely to eme rge victorious?: T he o ne with the better technology.
C ultural evolution thus proceeds ext raso matica lIy, exte rnal to and indepen-
dently ofthe body, and (unlike organic or biological evolution) has an element of
direct ionality, in that its tech noIogical aspects appear to improve throu gh t ime .
Among th e in novations aroun d thi s tim e was fire, as int erpreted from sorne
ch ar red fossil animal bones at severa l sites in East an d South Africa. Fire woul d
have th ree salutary uses: to cook food, to scare off predato rs, and to warm up .
Warming up wo uld be more nec essary in temperate clima tes, which m ay be why
we seem to find the earliest evidence for tire at sites in South Africa.
Cooking, o n the other h and , can broaden the spect ru m of edble food poss-
bilities in the environment. While we tend to think in terms of roast ng ante lopes,
it is very po ssible that vegetable matter, suc h as tubers, co mprised the bulk of wh at
was bein g roasted . The need for more fo o d m ay have been stimulated by the phys-
iolo gical co st of growng a big brain in th e first place. Leslie AieUo and Pete r
Wheeler have suggested th at having a big bra in is S0, rnetabolically costly that a
hgher-qu alty diet was requ ired, and food preparation took over so rne of the role
of the digestive system, so that the size of the gut wa s co nse q uently reduced. They
po int to a dfferent shape of the rib cage (barr el-sha pe d and apelike in small-
brained Lucy; broad and flatten ed in the Iarge-braned Nariokotome Boy) as ev-
denc e that t he nervous system of Horn o ergaster wa s exp anding at the exp ense of
its digestive system .
'Ih e fundam en taUy successful nature of th is adapt ation is sh own by the fact
th at Horno ergaster co mes to thrive in Africa at the expense of the o ther hominids ,
and ind eed to expa nd its geo graphic range beyond Afr ica . By 1.2 m ilJion years ago,
its too ls and bones are fou nd at sites outside of frica, and it is arguably th e only
homin id spe cies left.
REFERENCES AN D FURTHER READl N G
Aiello, L.e..and P. Wheeler. 1995. The cxpe nsive-tissu e hypothesis. Current A nthropology
36:199- 221. ._
Berger; L. R., D. J. de Ruiter, S. E. Churchill, P. Schmid, K. J. Carlson, P. H. G. M. Dirks, and
J. M. Kibii. 2010. Australopithecus sediba: A new specles of Homo-like australopith
from South Africa. Sd ence 328: 195-204.
Bramble, D. M., and D. E. Lieberman. 2004. End uran ce running an d the evoluton of Horno.
N atu re 432:345-352.
Clarke, R. J. 1998. Pirst evcr discovery of a well-preserved skull and associa ted skeleton of
A ustralopithecus. South Afr ican [ournal of Sd ence 94:460- 46 3.
D ar t, R. 1925. A ustralopithecus cfri canus: Th e manape of Southern Africa. Nature 115:
195-199.
 214 CHAPTER 11 THE DENTAL AND T HE MENTAL

Gun dli ng . T. 2005. Pirst in Une: tracing our ape ancestry. New Haven , CT: Yale University
Press. CHAPT ER 12
Hll, A.an d S. War d. 1988. O rigin of th e Hom in idae: T he record cf ACrican large ho rninoid
evolution b etween 14 My and 4 My. Yearbook ofPhysical Anthropology 31:49-83.
Hill, A. S. Ward , A. De no, G. Curts, an d R. Dra ke. 1992. Eerllest Horn o. Nature 355:
719-722.
loh an son , D. C; and T. D. Wh ite. 1979. A syste rnatic assess me nt of early African hornin ids.
Science 203:321-3 29. What to Do When
Ioh en son . D.c. F. T. Ma sao, G. G. Eck. T. D. White, R. C. Walter, W H. Kimbel, B. Asfaw,
P. Manega, P. Ndesso ka, and G . Suwa. 1987. New pa rtial skeleton of Horno habilis Confronted by a Neandertal
fro m O lduva Go rge, Tanzania. Nature 327:205- 209.
Leakey, L.. P. V. Tobas, and J. Nap er 1964. A new speci es of the gen us Horno from Olduvai (On Continuity and Discontinuity)
Gorge. Nature 202:5-7.
Leakey, M. D. and R. L. Hay. 1979. Plioc en e footprints in th e laetolil beds at Laetol, north-
ern Tan zania. Nature 278:317- 323.
Ma clarnon , A. and G. Hewitl 2004. In creased br eath ing control: An ot her facto r in th e evo -
lut ion of hurnan lan guage. Evolutionary Anthropology 13:181-1 97. T H EME
McC ollum, M . A. 1999. T h e robust australopthecne face: A mo rp hogen etic perspect ve.
Science 284:30 1- 305. The fossil reco rd of the genus Horno over the last million years involves a dia lecti -
McH en ry. H . M. an d K. Co ffing 2000. Australopithecus to Horno: Tran sfo rm ation s in bo dy cal tension between physical conti nuity an d disco ntinuity. O n the one hand , sev-
and m ind. An nual Review 01Anthropology 29:125-1 46. eral d istinct taxa in the hum an lin eage can be d iscern ed on the basis of key
Potts, R. 1996. Humanitys Deseent: The Consequences 01 Ecological lnstability. New York: morphological featur es. But on the ot her hand, the .differences are subtc, and
William Mo rrow. "m issing Hnks" co nnecting the taxa, far fro m be ing m issing, are ncarly ubiquitous,
Skelton, R. an d H . McHenry. 1992. Evolutionar y relatio n ships am ong early homind s. Iour- which is why th e classification of these an cestors an d relatives has proven to be
nal 01 Human Evolution 23:209-349. difficult.
Smth, B. H . 1986. Dental d evelopment in Australopithecusan d early Horno. Nature 317:525.
Spencer, F. 1990 . Pltdown: A Scientific Porgery. New York: Oxford University Press.
In 19 4 5, the distin guished paleon tolo gist George Gaylord Sim pson publi sh ed a
Stcd m an , H. H . B. W. Kozyak, A. Nelson, D. M. Theser, L. T. Su. D. W, Low, C. R. Bridges,
m agisterial synthesis of marnmalian system atics. A comer of the arder Pri m ates,
J. B. Shrager; N. Mnugh -Pu rv s, and M. A. M ichell. 200 4. Myos in gen e mutation cor-
relat es wit h anatomical ch anges in th e human ln eage. Nature 428:415-4 18. however, was troubling. "Perhaps it wou ld be bett er for the zoological taxonom ist
Tatter sall, l. 1986. Spe ces recog nition in hum an pal eontulogy. l ourna of Human Evotution to set apa rt the fam ily Hominida e and to exclud c its nom en clatura and classifica-
15:165-1 75. tion from hi s st udi es,"he wrote.
Tobas. P. V. 199 ]. The Skulls, Endocasts and Teeth ofJlomo habilis. Vol. 4 of Olduvai Gorge: Simpson couId afford to be a bit sar castic, as the world's expert on th e classi-
Cambrid ge. En glan d: Ca mbridge Unversity I'r ess. ficanon of m am m als. But his point resonates: homi nid classif icatlon is beyon d
Tob as, P. V. 1997. Ap e-like Australopithecus after seventy year s: Wa... it a hom inid ? Ioum a hclp, and will pro bably always be. Maybe it is becausc of the logcal contradiction
01 the Royal Anthropologieal Society 4:283- 308. of tr ying to classify yourself objec tively (when the act of classifying m akes yo u t he
walker, A., an d R. Leakey, 1978. The hom in ids of East Turkan a. Scientific American 239: subje ct as well as the object): o r becau se of t he mea nin g-Iad enn css that is carr ied
54- 66.
by all narratives of human ki nship and descent; or because of th e m o ral eco no m y
walker, A. and R. Leakey; eds. 1993. The Nariokotome Ho rno erect us skeleton. Cambridge,
of ho rninid d assificat ion (chapter 11) that favors splitt ing ; or even t hat the tr ain -
M A: Ha rvard Universiry Pres s.
ing of hu man paleo ntologists is often in medical anato rny m o re th an in systematic
w ard, C. 2003. T h e evolu tion of hum an origin s. American An thropologist105:77-88.
ward , c..M. Leakey, and A. Walker. 1999. The new h o mini d sp ecies Australopithecus biology. Mayb e t's a combina tion of the m. wh at is im po rta nt is tha t th e d assifi-
anamensis. Evolutionary Anthropology 7:197-20 5. cation of the hum an lin eage gener ally seems to reflect less "bio logical rea liry"
Wh ite, '[ D. 2002. Earliest hom ini ds. In The Primate Fossil Record. ed. W C. Hart wig, t han does the classitk at ion of other lineage s. And, as Simpson recognized, it's
40 7-4 ) 7. New York: Ca m bridge Unv ersity Press. unavoidable.
wood. B. A. an d M. Co lJard. 1999. Th e hu m an gen us. Scence 284:65- 71. Consider th e firs t pont, th at th e act of c1assifying makes you a subjcct an d an
object, a d iffere nt situation from classifying fruit fles, where yo u are th e subjec t

215
 216 CH APTER 12 W HAT TO DO W H EN CONFRONTED BY A NEANDERTA I.
and they are the objec t. T h is is a gap tha t can never be bridged, for in order to
classify h um ans "objec tvcly" you must begin by becoming nonhum an yourself.
Yet that is m an ifestly impossiblc -the one incontestab le biological faet in this
I Thern
enter prise is that you are human . It m akes no sense to begin an ostens ibly seien -
tifi e enterprise denying the one obvous fact tha t everybody agrees on : We are
humans classifyin g humans, an d it can ne ver be otherwtse.
Nevertheless, even f it has no scientifie merit for being id iotc, the re is rhe tor-
ical value in pretend lng to be no nhuman wh ile d assifying humans. Th om as HuxIey
was the first to make th is argument, as he tri ed to persuade his read ers that huma ns
and ap es were aet ually more alike than h s readers m ight be inclined to thi nk:
Let us imagine ourselvesscientific Satumans, ir you will, fairly acquainted with
such anirnals as now inhabit the earth, and employed in discussing the relations
they bear to a new and singular 'creer and featherless biped' which sorne enter-
prisng traveller, overcoming the dfflcultes of space and gravitation, has brought
from that distant planet for our inspecton, well prescrved, may be, in a cask of
rumo. . . We should undoubtedly place the newly dscovered tellurian genus with
[the apes].
Huxley is act ually cons truc ti ng a very clever argument here. "Maybe 1 can't
really convi nce you that hum ans and apes are so sim ilar," he is saying, "but ifth ere
were biologists 0 0 Saturn , tbey would voucb for me."
But since th ere are no b ologsts on Saturn , we have on ly Huxley h lm self to tell
us what th ey think.
lo the 1920s. th e paleontologist Hen ry Fairfiel d O sborn-who was both a
lead io g D ar win ist and a Iead ing racist-e-wr ote for a p opular audience:
If an unbiased zologist were to descend upon the earth from Mars and study the
races of man with the same impartialty as the races of fishes, birds, and mamo
mals, he would undoubtedly divide the exsting races of man into several genera
and into a very Iarge number of speces and subspecics.
O nce agatn. the message is a stra nge one: Invoking science fiction to make an
ost cn srbiy scientific point. An d th e pui nt again, is, I can't really demonstr ate this,
but tbe Martians would vouch for me. (In th is case, however, it seems as though the
Martian bologists are cons idcrably less competent than th e Saturn ian biologists.)
And the argum ent is still p owcrful. In 1992, th e biolo gist Iare d Diam ond
wrote, ''A zoologis t frorn O ut er Spac e wo uld irnmediately classify us as ju st a
third speces of chi mpanzee. . . ." It ought to be sufficie nt to rebut th is argu ment
with , "No, they would n't," for yo ur kn wled ge of the thought processcs of extra-
terre strials is the same as his.
T he re is, however, a subtler an d more insidi ou s poi nt he re. An thropologists
h ave long b eco documenting the div erse ways in which peopIe divide and cIassify
the thi ngs th at are important to thcm-c-relatives, colors, ki nd s of sn ow, knds of
illnesses, an d kinds of d iarr hea- and they do so in locally m eaningful ways. That
is to say, they are classi fyi ng because the y are Inte rested in the se objects. an d they
impose order upo n the obj ects by arra nging them acco rding to the criter'ia they
thin k are importan t. Th us, the Bible explains how to classify the an irnals of the
217
worl d (cha pter 6). T he reason is ver y exp licit: To tell th e Heb rews wha t th ey co uld
and cou ldn't eat. Th e criteria are exp ltct. too : an imals are to be classified by wh ere
tb ey live and by how they move, Thus, the pr im ar y division will be in th e air, o n
the land , or in th e sea. O f th e airborne ani mals, th ere are th ose that fly and tho se
that swar m ; the lan d-dw ellin g an im als are divided into those that have hoo ves,
those th at have paws, tho se tha t creep or swarm , those that travel on their belly,
and tho se with many feet. And the sea- dwelling ani ma ls are tho se with fins and
scales, and tho se without them.
Th e criteria are arbitrar y; bu t they render the universe meaningful or sensible-
they give it ord er. So wha t of the scien tific argument that aliens would dassify
th e world just as the sp eaker would! It is p robably more Iikely th at the ext ra-
terrestn als would c1assify us by how we taste. Th e speaker does no t cvcn app rccl -
ate th e breadth of human in genui ty in imposing order upo n th ings, m uch less th e
scope of alien in genu ity!
The second point is th at all classficarion is value-I ad en , and a scientfic clas-
sifcation of our place in the natural orde r, par ticularly ou r historical place, is
meanin gful in ways that c1ass ifying oth er species sim ply is 001. Wh en the lawm ak -
ers of Ten nessee made it illegal to teach evolutio n in the 1920s, they specified
who se evolution they were particu larly concerned about. It wasn't the barn acles
that Dar win actualIy worked on , or the dnosaurs tha t have captured our imagina-
tions, or th e frui t fijes that ha ve toId us abo ut speciation . Rather it was ma de illegal
specifically "to te ach any th eory th at denie s th e story of the Divin e Creation of
man as taught in th e Bble, and to teach instead that man has descended from a
lower order of animals."
As we wiIl see, durin g World War 11, the Iapanese sought to dest roy the fossils
of Peking Man , an d thus destroy th e Ch inese people's an cestors. And in mo der n -
day Ethiop ia. Kenya, and South Africa, bein g a key part of the scicn tlflc story of
th e hu man fam i1y is a sourc e of national pride. Ind eed , as we no ted in chapter 11,
na tional prl dc was probably a contrib uting factor to the success of the Pilrdow n
Man fraud .
Th e poin t is, how we m ake sens e of th e human famil y-our an cestors a nd
eousins- is subject to syrnbo lic pressures th at other biologi sts do n't have to deal
with. That's sim ply the price tag that comes with wor king on something so nter -
esting as hu man origins.
Thc th ird point is the moral econ omy of splittin g. As not ed in chapter In, th e
most basic kin d of analysis to publish is a d ad istic study of the featu res of the rel-
evan t fossils. But since c1adistic analyses do n't work in principie below the species
levcl, it makes sense to increase the number of species you recogn ize, so you ca n
un alyze th em as if they were species. Furt her, mult iplying th e numbcr of spccies
de mocrattzes the prc ccss, so that more scientists control key specirnens, mo re
m useum s and more curat ors are more im portant, and more egos are the reby
massaged. Taxonomic splitt ing th us becomes not an act of caprice. but a stra tegic
pr actice-the rising tde t hat Iifts all academ ic boats (an d careers).
 . 1' 0 DO W HEN C O N FR O N T ED BY A NEAN DERTA L The Human Lineage 219
2 18 C HAPTER -12 . W HAf
id r s the epistemological probl em cause d by th e exis- TH E HU MAN LINE AGE
Anoth e r thing to caosl : "1record You devote your ca ree r and li fe to plug Horno ergaster m akes a. great di scovery: the rest of th e world . With the technology
. th e human 10551 .
tence o f a gap In d d e it for yo urse1f or you r b en efactor. o r for your to ex ploi t it, Horno ergaster m akes its way through diverse climates in Eura sia by
o d ou 5uccee ) an nam ' .h
ging tt, an Y .cn tfc
1 1 cost!. You h ave now cre ated two gap s, o ne 0 0 erte e r 1.2 million year s ago. T he d im ati e d iversity of Africa is oft en underemphasized;
t twha t asO
p eop \e- b ti a . b h f h ich now h ave to b e filled, where th er e was lor- old racists u sed to argue th at th e ch allen ges posed by Euras ian climatc variations
f h ew fOSSlls, ot o w "11 h
SIrle o t e n . le gap A n d so th eY will b e by someone else, wha Wl nam e t e
o

promot ed th e rise of inteUigence, but ths ignores th e faet th at australopith eci n es

m erly only a smg .e W gaps This is a game YOti can never wio - if yo u
a re fou nd n ear Joh a nnesburg and Dar-es-Salaam, thousan d s of miles and many
. d create tou r De . h
new spc res- an . "bological reality "-like the Gr eek rnyth of Sisyp uso climatic zo nes apart! Wha t this first African diaspora did was to promote gen et ic
r ep rescnt m g 1
ar e t h e en e . b Id up a hill but to never qu ite get the re. dn fr, by vastly expanding the ter ritor y into wh ich hominids could live in their
d to rol] a ou er . b d
con d em ne
o

b th t we are dealin g with b ro adly d istri ut e spc cres, sma ll b ands. T hi s seems to he a situ ation em inentIy suit ed to Sewall Wr ight's
fi lly rem em e r a h
An d ma , . d of time- ce rtainly much shorter th an tose we m od el of drft a nd seJection wo rking togeth er (ch apter 5)0
1 o Uy shor t peno s d d
over geo oglc a . h . es T h e pattern s of ancestry and deseen t m ay in ee Two im por tant th ings n ow oc cu r, although the precis e details and mecha-
invoke for th e 1us tr aloplt Iatio s' th at lived in th s fairly na rrow span of gcological n isrn s ar e n ot well established. Prs t, the other hominid species beeome ext nct,
lex for po pu a IOn bl bl
b e very e~mp . el different places, looking su btly d fferent , but quite po ssi ya e a nd Horno ergaster (or its de scendant, Horno erectus) estab lishe s a monop oly on
time, but m w td y . th er Does the sha pe of n asal bones of Neander- the b iped ali sm/t ech nolo gy n ch e. Sec on d, Acheulian bifacial stone tooIs ca n be
d f Iy with o ne ano . .
to interbree re e th t th ey sh ould be plaeed in d iffere nt specrcs, as foun d most cornmonly in Africa and Western Asia, althoug h not invarlably, with
o s rcally mean a h
tals an d h u rn a h geste d or does it m ean th at th e scie ntist s ave the ergaster-erectus lineage.
to lo gists ave sug - , f h
sorne pa 1eon . h b ent of mu seums studying the fine str uetur e o t e T he reason for the im perfee t relatio nship between the tool s and the spe cie s is
eduplnt e asem
bee n eoop I g an d need to get sorne fresh air? probably that the technolo gy is a cu ltural featu re, and may b e adopted or not for
nasal borres for too on in id (or hominin) taxonorny is in a com parable posl- various reasons, ranging from d ire n ecessity to the availabllty of the appro p ria te
F ihesc rea sans, h,nrrum . ' 1
or '. h Simpso n wrote. Sorne paleon tologsts recogmze n ear y ki nds of raw m ateri als to sim ple aesth etics and tradition. Fu rthe r, simpler to oIs are
rion to the time rol en h en us Homo Ifthi s even app roximates b oogca l real- more easily ma de and still very useful.
ciessimpymt e g d o o

tw enty sp e h lt e couldn't have b een that great an a apta tio n, smce No tic e also th at the tirnescale of human evolution is beg inning to collapse.
o h ldmean t at cu ur . . ,
ty, t at wou . h h d it have gone extine t in only th e last 2.6 mil lon year s. where th e feature s of h um an evol ution discussed in the last ch apter oceurred over
th e sp ecJes 1 al a ( 1 l
9 5% o f
o

. urren tIy recognized are ch ronospecies an evo vmg m- m illions of years, Il OW we are dealing with hundreds of th ousa nds of years, and a
M y of th e specres c h ' ty
an d ff t enough from the way it began , with enoug con ttnur broader swath of the worl d . Further, dating techniques for th e geoJogical contex t
eage that ends ~p 1 thi n at th e beg inn ing and another thing at the end). T h is is of th ese fossils are not as reliable as po tassium-argon (for older material) or
id t call i t on e t u ng
eVI ent. o f h elal ion shipb etwee n Homo ergaster and Homo erectus. carb on- 14 (for youn ger m aterial, up to abou t 50.000 years ago ), and we tend to reIy
lik ly th e nature o t e r I H
very 1 e " 1 t accom modate anomalous specim ens, suc 1 as amo on a ccn vergence of different approaches for dating the material in this middl e range.
Oth ers eXI
OsI pIlman y o
JI d plug th ose m orphological gaps. suc as omo
h H
" sun others rea Y o Smaller physical differences now tend to beeome exaggerated in sign ificanc e
rudo~ensts.
1 o

E re_Neand ertal- although th e objectio n can in the minds of the scientists studying th em, since th e fossils themseIves are so rare
Western ur opean P . . .
antccessor, a h s which are na rrowly localized In time and space, an d con sequ ently each one is so m eaningful. And relations hips of australopithe -
. b ' ed th at t ose gap, .
a1ways e ra~s l I s but sub species. level gaps. And othe r spe cs may eXlst cine s to th e ancestry of our ow n species are now gone: wh ile being diagnosably
are not speeles - e~el .g~p 'mind of the scientist, in ""hose profess ional interests i~ d ifferent from us, these m ore recent h om inids are overwh elm ingly similar in brain
. th e essenU3 lzmg
on 1y 10 1 d irnmortality where th ere is only d ifferen ce. and bo d)' to our selves, and are consequently Ihat much more compeHing to
b te see nove ty an b
t bizarr c asp eet of alJ th is po or classification can e seeo 10
0

m ay e h rnytho logize in our narratives of an cestry.

Ce rtainly t e mas ggestio ns of two gro ups of geneticists. One grou p ma in - T he n ineleenth centu ry German evolut ionist Ero st Haeckel had predick d the
. th e recent su d o

companng e genetically so similar to us that we shou l recogTIlZC d iscovery of an ape-m an who woul d be bipedal but unable to speak, an d even
o h t ch impanzees ar . . h N
talOS t a . . f th gen us Horno. Ano ther group mamtams t at ean - named th is hyp othetical ancesto r Pithecanthropus alalus, or "mute ape:'ma n." A
nother specles o e h
tb ero as a . 11 o dliffierent from us th at we sho uld reeogn ize t em as
L dertaIs were genetlca y s you ng Dutch physician n am ed Eugene Dubois settled in Java (then a Dutch coI-
Cl.e s' o the genu s Horno.
ony) with an ambition to find those elusive "mi ssing lin k fossils." In 1 89 1 and
another spe . 1 bl ? Ch 'mpanzees are simply a heek of a lot more differe nt 1892, his efforts were rewarded with a femur, skulk ap. an d two teeth. found fairly
-' Y'"-:tt's tht' pro em . 1 . f s

("""
n Neandertals are, any way you mea sur e it: Th esc two sugges Ion , clase together at a site caBed Trinil.
b h b .ght O ne or the oth er, or possIbly both , mu.. t be wron g.

'" . .
220 CHA PT ER 12 W H AT T O D O WHEN CON FRO NT E D BY A N EAND ERTAL
The se first remains of "Java Man" sparked the curi osity of the schola rly com-
mu nity, and a lively debate about their meaning ensued. The femur had sorne
pathological growths (or exostoses), but was essentially human; the teeth were
human in form, but somewhat larger than human; and the skullcap was smaller,
th cker, and more angular than a human skull. Sorne skeptics argued that the skull
was that of a "microcephalic dot" (they were wrong ); sorne argued that the skuJI
was that of an ape (they were also wrong ); and sorne argued that the par ts repre-
sented more than one species (they were trivially right). The thighbon e does
appear to have come from an oId modern hum an; but the skull is from neither ape
nor person. from a species that did walk upright, but on slightly d ifferent legs than
a modern persone.
Subsequent discoveries in th e 1930s by G. H. R. ("Raiph") van Koenigswald,
from a site called Sangiran in Java, resernbled the or iginal Trinil material very
d osely. By 1940, there was a sample of four adult skulls, a ch d's skull, and two
jaws from these Indonesian sites.
Coincidentally, Davidson Black, an anatomist teaching in China, was brought
a molar too th that he recognized as slghtly different from a human counterpart.
In 1927, he published it as a new genus and species, Sinanthropus pekinensis ("Chi-
nese man from Peking"), and made arrangements to excavate the cave it carne
from , at a site now kn own as Zhcukoudian, about 20 miles sout h of Beijing. The
excavations were led by Black and by the Chinese paleontologist Pei Wenzhong,
who foun d a skull there on Decernber 2, 1929. Black died in 1934 and was ulti-
mately replaced by Franz Weidenr eich, a distin guished German anatomist who
ha d been obliged to emigrate because of his Jewish ancestry. Excavation continued
until l 937, when the Iapan ese Empire invaded China.
Against the backdrop of civil and political unre st, Weidenrcich and the Ch-
nese m ade excellent casts of the fassil material that had already bcen discovered,
which amo unted to five skulls and many mo re jaws and cranial fragm ents, teeth,
and postcrani a. In 1939, van Kaenigswald and Weidenreich compared the mate-
rial from Java and Chin a side by side and conciude d that they were ver y similar,
but global events soon overtook them. As we noted in chap ter 10, the Chinese fos-
sils disappeared on Pearl Harbar Dar and haven't been seen since.
Th ere have, of course, been many other Horno erectus fossils found in the
intervening decades, from sites in North Africa, South Africa, East Africa, South
Asia, Ind onesia, and various sites in East Asia, incJuding more remains from
Zhoukoudi an. Perh aps the most noteworthy of th ese newer find s is a skull bone
recovered in 1966 from the Peking Man site, whose cranial sutu res match perfectly
with those of one of the skulls cast by Weidenreich-dearly a part of the same
ind ividual, and a testament to the precision and accu racy of the Peking Man casts.
Horno erectus, as identified anaromically from the classc Asian and African
material, does not seem to have made it very far nort hwest into Europe. Fossils
d scovered in the 1990s from Gran Dolina in Span, and Ceprano in Italy, serve to
illustrate the anatomical continuity that ren ders it so difficult to Impo se taxo-
nomc categories up on these recent fossil hominid s. Regardl ess of how we allocate
t
The Mental and Socal Lfe of Horno erectus 221
these southern Euro pean find s (and sorne scholars would splt them into yet
ano ther fossil hominid speces, H orno antecessor!), they form a strong anatomica l
bri dge between classic Horno erectus in Asia and Africa and the earliest Horno
sapiens.
THE M ENTALAND SOCIAL LIFE OF HOMO ERECTUS
Earnest Hooton (chapter 1) very likely overstated th e primitiv eness ofthe mental
quali ties of Horno erectus when he wro te a couplet that rhym ed its occipital torus
with "no ideals with which to bo re us" It ts, however; with Horno erectu s that
archacology begins to detect aspects of what we may call the life of the mi nd. The
earliest evidences are always the most equivocal, and of course fire was presum -
ably utilized and controlled lon g before it couId be produ ced on demand and fulIy
mastered. But by the time that H om o erectus begins to be replaced by archaic
H orno sapiens, a few hundred thousand years ago, we find evidence for hearths-
which in turn implies the thi ngs tha t people do with fires, from scaring off preda -
tors, (o cookng, to staying warrn , and even telling "cam pfire stories" (or a primi tive
equivalent with its attendant social correlates).
Th e featu res of the huma n brai n that are gro ssly assoclated with language,
such as its basc asym mctrical structure, and regiuns kno wn as Brocas area and
Wern ckes area, are all pres ent in the brain of Horno erectus. These featu res are
arguably present in the brains of ear lier ancestors, but whatever debate exists abo ut
their br ains ends with those of H orno erectus .
Migrating into more no rtherly latitudes bro ugbt H orno erectus into contact
with un familia r animal) and cooler environments. Cons equently, we tend to asso-:
d ate with Ho rno erectus th e constr uct ion of shelters, and wider adoption of cloth-
ing. While th e most famous Ho rno erectus sites are caves, those caves were also
occuped by hyenas, bears, and other animals whose archacological effects are dif-
f icult to disentangle from hum an activity. Thu s, does the faet that th e Peking Man
skulls are generally mssng thc softer cranial base imply that the brains were eaten
in a cannibalistic frenzy, or by hyenas?
There is little doubt that Horno erectus was a successful huntin g species, and
that th is cultural exploitation of resources heIped it spread rapidly over the 0 Id
wo-l d. This demographic expansin, however, yields a paradox, given the longev-
it y, low fertility, and difficult parturition characteristic of our lin eage. As the brain
cxpande d, birth became h nrder, and put mother and child at con sider ably greater
risk than thcir ancestors faced. Moreover, assocated with this bra in growt h is a
longer period of immaturitv; An eight -year-old chimpan zee is physically matur e
and able to fend for itself but an eigbt-year-old human is still h ighly dependent on
others. How couId a young mo ther fend for herself and her child (as a you ng ape
mothe r must), as weIl as for her previous children, still very highly dependent on
hcr (while th e ape mo ther is no lo nger burdened by them) ?
In other words, the growth of the brain, which we often take to be self-
evidently beneficial, came wth att endant problems that needed to be addresse d f
222 C HA PT ER 12 WHAT TO DO WHEN CON FRO NTE D BY A N EANDERTAL
thi s evoluti onary stra tegy was to succeed. The answer to thcse problems seems to
lie in the coevolut ion ofbiological specializations and social form s in the hum an
llneage, the "grand mother hypothesis" (chapter 9). A strengthen ing ofthe mater-
nal lneage. with older, nonreproductive females assisting their own daughters and
granddaughters, was one solution to this problem. An independent solution carne
with the development of th e now-universal institution of marriage, which gener-
ally ncludes responsibilities for joint provisioning of offspring. It seems reason-
able to associate the development of these new social form s, and th eir attendant
obligatio ns, with the demographic and geographic expansion of Horno ereetus. (A
recent study finds that advanced age only became common later in the fossil
record . which might even make the obligations associated with marriage the first
solution, and grandmothering the second .)
HOMO SA PIENS, THE WISE SPECIES
Th e con tinued expansion of the brain produced groups ofhom inids about 400,000
years ago with cran ial capacities well within th e normal range of modern humans,
but outs dc the range of modero hum an mor pho logy in other respects. We gener-
aUy take this to mark the emergence of our own speces. Horno sapens, in an
archaic form, alth ough with obvous strang contl nuity to Horno ereetus.
We can caUth e earliest representatives of our species Horno sapiensheidelber-
gensis, after ~ jaw discovered in Germany in 1907, which may be nearly half-a-
mi llion years old. Not only are th e dating techniques often imprecise here,
especi aUy for material recovered decades ago, but so, of course, is the taxonomy.
Nevertheless, similar remains are known from Spain (Atapucrca), England
(Swanscombe) , Greece (Petralona), and Franee (Arago), all several hundred thou -
sand years old. In fact, fossils of very similar form have beco foun d as far away as
India {Narmada}, Ethiopi a (Boda ), Zambia (Kabwe), China (Maba), and Indone-
si. (Ngandong).
Horno sapiens heidelbergensis presenta a form at once strikiogly fam iliar, ye!
,also strikingly primitive . lts head is larger and rounder than Horno erecnzs, and ns
skull bones somewhat th inne r. An d YCI its face is massive and juts forward, and tbe
lack of a forchead results in enorm ous browr idges, the thickest we encou nter in
th e hominid record.
One striking aspect of the archacological record of tools is the extent lo which
it diverges from th e paleontologcal record of bone s. For all of the wcll. known
(and perhap s over-interpreted] discrete anatomical variations among these homi-
n id laxa, the toolkits they made and used exhibit cxtensive continuity, both locallv
and globally. And althou gh there are general association s to be ma de between
skull forros and toolkits, there are many sites at which the tools do not match the
skulls. In oth er words, people are ncver simply doin g, in one place, everythng that
they are capable of which is why we cannot easily nfer the intellectual capacltles
of the inhabitants from what we happen to find at any par ticular site. Further,
since the longest-studied and bcst- known stone tool assemblages are fromEuropt"
Neandertal Lfe 223
we tend to interpret lithic technologies from the rest of the worId in a "Euro-
ccntric" fra mewo rk. However, they may not be strictly comparable, insofar as
any technology mu st be adapted to the locally available raw materials and to the
specific rcquiremenls of the climat e, available prey, and other environmenta l
partic ulars.
These archaic Hornosapens populatons were smart enough to appreciate the
Mediterra nean, and many Middle Paleolithic sites have been excavated in south-
ern Europe . At Terca Amata in Fran ce, a group ofhom inids 300,000 years ago left
evidence of simple structures there , containing pits of ash that are reasonably
interpret ed as hearths . Stone tools associated with these kinds of hom inids have
yieldcd evidence th at they were used to scrape hides. A Middle Paleolithic site in
Israel showed the occupants to be roasting and eating the available nuts in the area.
One descendant population of H. s. heidelbergensis beeame adapted to th e
rtgors of the glacial agcs in Europe; th ese are known as Neandertals, or Horno
sap ens neanderthalensis. These specializations included a short, stout, muscular
bod y, a rou nded bur elongated head, an d a narr ow, forward -projecting face.
The Neander tals were the first extinct members of the hum an lneage to be
discovered, and have cor.sequently been stud ied the longest, and scrutinized th e
most extensively. Subtle but regular differences from modero people have been
discerned in virtually every part of the Neandertal's body, from the bridge of its
nose to the tips of its fingers. It is hard to evaluate the signifcance of any of these
features either to th e Neandertal's survival or to its taxonornic status, but one th ing
is cIear: th ey occupied a unique position, bcing both "like us" and "not like us" the
ambiguity of which has gven them great cultural power, for it is against lile Nean-
dertaIs that we contrast ourselves in the mo st basc zoological way. Whether we
see th em as a species OJ as a subspeces, they are the lowest-ranked zoological
group against which we can contrast ourselves. Their anatorny lies outside the
range of modero hu man variation, but not very far outside it.
NEAND ERTAL LI FE
The anatomical features we identify as Nean derta l are found on fossils from
Europe an d th e Mediter ranean area, from about 250,000 to about 30,000 years ago.
The skuUis low, like llomo ereetus, but rou nded rather than angular, and at least as
large as a mode ro human's. The Neande rta l skull, however, retains its greatcst
width near the bottom . AH of its long bonesare short and stout, often wth mpres-
sive grooves and ridges for th e attachmc nt of prominent muscJes. Although their
bones are often diagnosably different from modern human bones , Neandertals
walked fully erect, in contrast to caricatures of the "cave ma n" (although wherher
they uscd wooden club s to subdue m ates is tantalizingly unknown).
Many Neandertal bones show sgns ofhealed fracture s. This seems to demon -
strate two thin gs: On e, the harshn ess of Ice Age life, and two, a system of suppor t
that perm itted the injured to be cared for and to survive. The most famo us exam-
,. pIe, which inspired the Jean Auel's novel The Clan of the Cave Bear, nvolved an
I
iJ.

224 C HA PTER 12 WHA T ro DO WH EN CONFRON T ED BY A NEANDERTA L
adult male (Shanidar 1) who had survived an arm amputa tion and considerable
trauma to his head and body. Indeed, Neandertal arm bon es are also very bilater-
ally asymmetrical, with on e side [the right} generally being far more robust than
the other, to an extent only seen in modern tennis players. That suggests repeated,
strenuou s, asymm etrical motion; perhaps spear thru sting. Many Neandertal teeth
commonly have enamel hypoplasas, indicative of uneven growth rates, as occurs
in human s who suffer from period ic dietary deficiencies.
A unique pattern of dental wear on the anterior teeth suggests the working of
hides and sinews through the teeth, as arctic populations of humans have done
quite recently. The rear teeth differ from our own principally in their position;
their third molars (wisdom teeth) erup ted vertically, with more than enough room
so that there s actually a "retro molar space" between the back edgc of the last
molar tooth and the front edge of the ascending ramus of the jaw. Our own teeth
have regressed so far back that our last molar is generally hidd en behind the
ascendin g ramus when it erupt s, and consequently is often impacted.
Matching the tools to the raw materials from which they were made suggests
the existence of trade networks, or at least of highly mobile popu lations with
extensive social relations.
Although man y of the most famous impressions of Neandertals appear to
have been based on romant icizcd over-interpr etations of the archaeological evi-
dence. it s clear at least that they ccmmonly buried their dead . This implies some-
rhtng, although it is not clear what: Belief in an afterlife? Disgust at scavenger
actlviry on the bodies oflove d ones? Discouragemen t of cann balism! A taboo on
dead bodies? Regardless of which cognitive property we assgn to it- awe of death,
d isgustoforethou ght. or a divisin of the sacred and profane-we are recognizing
sorne kind of high men tality in these cxtinct beings, a recognition we cann ot make
with any ot her form of llfe.
Australopith ecines and early Hamo are associated with the Oldowan indus-
try; Horno erectus with the Acheulian industry (characterized by an abundance of
handaxes in frica and south Asia, but less so in East Asia); ano Neandertals with
an in dustry known as Mousterian. Mousterian points represent a high degree of
refinement in lithic tech nology when compared to earlier choppers and llakes.
They are smaller and more precise. suggesting bot h a hiche r degree of manual
dexterity and a more ambitious final produc t. Mousterian tools also show atten-
tion to small, fine work at the edge.
The Neandert al's body build was probahly an adaptation to the glacial cli-
mates. as cold- ada pted peoples today are also stockily built, for that shape retains
heat efficiently. However, Neandertals also lived in Iraq, where it is notoand was
not, particularly frigid. Consequently, tt is prob ably un wisc to identify too many
aspects of their appearance casually as "adaptations" to cold c1imatc.
Likewise, we tend to think of them as "big game hu ntcrs" relying on reindeer
. herds, or othe r animal sources of subsistence, as arctic populations of humans
tend tooArchaeologically we find that Neande rtals werc indeed skilled hunters-
and that their combination of physical strength, ingenuit y; and technology enabled
'y,
Ana tom ically Modero Peop le 225
them to bring down rabbts. rhin os, and anything in between. And yet, when
available, they also ate sorne seafood. In other words, they were able lo adapt lo
local circumst ances and lrve successfully off what was available, as contemporary
foragers do.
Their own meatiness, and their proficiency at huntin g, raises the question of
whether they occasionallydined on one another. This is difficult to assess because
the two most general and powe rful taboos in human society are cannibalism and
incestoand imagining a society in which one or the othcr taboo did not exist is a
common literary them e, since it explores a pre sumptive bound ary between
humans and other form s of Ife (which presumably lack such rule-based gover-
nance). At several Neandertal sites, the bones show unmi stakable marks of hav-
ing been defleshed-stone tool marks on the same parls of the body that one
find s thern on other animal bone s, where sinc ws are sliced to facilitate the
rernoval of meat. But does th is mean that the body was defleshed and eaten Or
simply that they had their own reasons for transforming corp scs into skeletons
for mor tuary practices, as many people do eth nographically? Thc f irst alterna tive
syrnholically rendcrs the Neandertals behaviorally nonhuman (since the con-
sumption of human flesh Hes on the symbolic boun dary ofhuman behavior); the
second symbolically renders them as more hum an. since it invokes thou ght and
ritual.
And since de fleshng has been argued for hominid material as far back as
Horno erectus 600,000 years ego, our inte rpretation of the pr actice mar be mpor-
tant in und erstanding the origin of the human mind. Ths highlights the problems
faced by Paleolithic archaeologists as they explore the complex relationshlp
between thoughts and their mate rial expression.
ANATOM ICALLY MODERN PEOPLE
Our own lineage, a11 over the world, is mar ked by a dramatic reduction and reces-
sien of the face. Along with this comes a shift in the shape of the brain, assuming
a more globular formoThc result yields our two most familiar featu res: a forehead
and a chinoThere is also evidence to suggesl that growt h and matura tion in our
lineage occurred up to 30% mo re slowly, as contrasted to archaic Horno sapiens,
from the patter n in which layers of enamel on the teeth (known as perikyrnata)
were deposited.
Another feature is well known to college students: overcrowded wisdom teeth
pushed far back intc the jaws, so that they cannot grow in properly and are
"impacted" \Ve might wonder what William Paley. the nineteenth -century author
ofNatural Theology, would have made of a wise "designer" who made OUT jaws too
small for our teeth!
We fnd the frst evdence for people like these-c-robust, yet physically mod -
ern people- nearly 200,000 years ago in East Africa. By 90,000 years ago. their
remains are found in the Middle East and southern Africa. Over the next 50,000
years they wll make it lo China, Australia , and Eastem Europe.
,l.

226 CHAPTER 12 W HA T TO DO W HEN C ON FRON T EO BY A NEA NDERTAL
Although hum ans coexisted with Neandertals for 50,000 years in the Midd le
East, tha t coexistence in Western Europe was considerably sh orter- about 10,000
years-and the physical contrast was more striking. AHmod ern popul ations more
closely resemble ene ano ther th an they resemble the archaic hum an papulations
that once lived th ere. We all, for example, have th e bady sh ape of the Africans of
200,000 years ago, not of Europeans of 200,000 years ago. However, it is not
uncommon to find that certain traits characteristic ofloc al archac populations are
occasionally found in later, othe rwise no rmal modern peopIe in th e same area.
Ccrt ainly the most obviou s of these is the prominent jutting mid-face of Neandc r-
tals, which is appro ximated in sorne northern Europeans.
One interestin g pattern is th at the earlicst modern human populations in
Europ e and the latest Nean dertal popu latons show sorne signs of convergence,
altho ugh still read ily separable. Early mo dern Europeans, for exampl e, genera lly
had elongated heads: no t shaped as strikingly as a Neandert al head s, but certa inly
on the "very long" end of th e mod ern hum an rangc. Various early mo dero skulls
have significantly large bro ws and jaws to go along with their diagnostic foreheads
and chin, and the late Nea ndertal site of Vind ija in Croatia has Neandertals with
smaller brow ridges end jaws. A 36,OOOyear-old mand ible from Rom an ia is diag-
nostically mod ern, yet has a single feature general1y found on Nea ndertal jaws.
At a 25,000 year oId site in Portugal called Lagar velho, archaeolog ists found an
ana tom cally modern child with the stou t m uscular body oC a Nea ndertal ; was he
just a stocky. mod ern kid , or evidence for ancient contact between th e two
populations?
Ultim ately, th ough. we see only people with foreheads and chin s after about
30,000 years ago. Wh at permitted these anatomi cally modern humans to surv ive
and to flouri sh, while the Neande rtals pe rishcd? "Vas there som ething we had and
they lacked, which effectively fated the out come - or, rath er, if we replayed the
movi e of life, might they just as easily have surv ived at our expen se? [The latter is
actualIy the plot of a series offun novels by scence fiction writer Robert J. Sawyer.)
The question is important, because it frames howwe see the Neandertals-e-whether
as imper fect or not fuUy for med versions of ourselvcs, or as a highly successful and
well-adapted population. The first alternative has held a powerfu l sway over our
scientific narratives for gencrations: On e group of scienti sts reeently suggested
th at the Neandertals died because they all had a thyroid condition-as if our job
was to identify just what was "wron g" with them . This approach, howevcr, is df-
ficult.to square with the fact tha t Neandertals existed for a longer duration than
modern huma ns have!
Actually it is concevable that the success of modern humans was due not so
much to a biomedlcal advan tage, as it was to a discovery, a cultur al advanta ge. For
100,000 years, anatomicalIy mode ro huma ns h ad Iived pretty much as th er Nean-
dertal couslns did. But about 50,000 years ago, th ey began making a new kind oE
. stone tool-Iong, thi n, sharp "blades" to contrast with Neandertal "flakes" They
also bega n to work with other kinds of raw materials, such as bone (which m.ay
have begun in Africa close to 100,000 ycars ago), and to decorate them sclves with
--'
I
Anato m ically Modcrn People 227
the product s of their labor, such as pendants and beads. Byabout 35,000 years ago
they were painting th e walls of caves.
, The Neandertals, ho wever int elligent th ey were, had never seen anything
like this. AJthough they sometimes burted th eir dead, and have bee n associa ted
with caches of natural pigments. there is HUle evidence that they buried anyth ing
wlth the corpses, or that th ey ever actua lly colored anything-(except perhaps
thems elves). Perh aps the new artifacts carne with status and set theowner aboye
oth er mem bers of the group. Perhaps th ey were a very powerful means of estab-
lishing widespread social relations and systems of oblgat on th at enabled the
bearer to participa te in widespread trade netwo rks that would have been benefl -
cial to all. In any event, they effectivcly signaled social stat uses, and bou nd people
strongly to the social gro up. va th e sha red meanings and values that we mean by
"culture."
Interestingly, a few thousan d years later th e Neandertals were doing it too, for
example, at a site called Grotte du Renn e in Francc . Archaeologists disput e whether
thcy bo rrowed it from anatomically modero pcople. or whcther th ey hit upon
these ideas themselves independently. Actually, there is a third alternative, called
"stimulus diffusion" by the Ame rican ant h ropologist Alfred Kroebe r in 1940. Two
gro ups, aware of each other's existenc e and perceiving th emselves as rivals, moni -
tor each othe r carefully. One (say, the United States) develops something useful
(say, an atomic bomb). The other (say, the USSR) decides they have to have on e.
The United States is not going to sit down and teach them how to makc an atomic
bomb: nor are th e Soviets hitting up on th e idea indep endently. Rather, stimulatcd
by what they saw of the U.5.versin , they used the ir own ingen uity an d technology
(and spies) to develop their own atomic bombo
Perhaps that is what Neandertals did as well. Indeed, archaeologsts can shc w
that the holes th at the Neandertals dr illed to m ake bon e pendants were made dif-
ferently from the way that contempo rary modern hum ans drill ed holes for th eir
bone penda nts. They seem to have adapt ed techn iques th ey were familiar with lo
the n ew task at hand . Disentangling cultural processes from biological r ro ( f' .~ se.s
now becomes paramoun t for anthropologists interpr eting th e record of past
behavior, after hun dred s of tho usan ds of years of fairly tight associa tion betwecn
cultural and biological forms.
One of th e hallmarks of the material culture of mo dero humans is its rapid
change a er about 40,000 years ago. Like the earlier lth c traditons, Neandertal
tools were remarkably stable over a lon g period of tim e, close to 200,000 years.
Our own stone too ls, however, develop such great diversity and spec ialization that
we necd a glossary of names t describe them all: Aurignacian, MagdaJenian, 501 -
utrean, Gravettian, and so forth. An d yet, the Ch atelperr onian , once thought to be
a modero human tech nology, is now widely heJd to have been a Neander tal devel-
opm ent from the Mou sterian -and thus, evidence of a more intimate relatlonshtp
betwcen the stone tools of Neandertals and m oderns. Perh aps our cou sins werc
actually on board at the beginn ing of the ride of th e Upper Paleolith ic cultu ral
roller coaster.
,
.

228 CHA P T ER 12 WH AT ro DO W HE N C O N FR O N TED BY A N EAN DER TAL
Moreove r, it is import ant to reme mbe r tha t cave pa inting is first known from
about 35,000 years ago at Chauvet In Prance, whi le th e best-known sites of Las-
caux (Fr an ce) and Alta mi ra (Spa in) ar e o nly about 14,000 years old. In other
wo rds, nearly twice as mu ch tim e elapsed betwe en th e sites of Ch auvet a nd Las-
caux, with no discernible differen ce in style, as clapsed be tween Lascaux and
Picasso. We consequently cannot regard the painting of cave walls as a biological
in novaticn, for humans existed long be fore they pa inted cave walls; nor can we
nccessarily see rapi d cultur al cha nge as a biolog ical m utaton, as features of
h uman cu lture were qu ite stable for un fatho mab ly long periods of time. Rath er,
discoveri es and rates of behav iora l change app ear th emselvcs to be cuItu rally
dri ven .
There is a hundred-thousand -year lag betv....een the emer gen ce of the an ato m-
ically modern hum an form and th e d scove ry and spread of art , ou r pr incipal indi-
cata r of behavio rally and m ent al1y rnod ern people. While sorn e have argued th at
th s lag in dicates a gene tic evolutio nary chang e sep arating earl y modern humans
from Iater mod ern human s, that is probably as unneccssary as inferring a geneti c
evo lutio nary change from the 3D,OOO-year lag between th e eme rgcnce of cave
pa inting and wri tin g. Writing is obviously a latent pr oper ty in all pe ople, even
in those who lived before it was invented; what reaso n is t here to regard art any
differcntly?
At any rate othe distinctive Neanderth al rnorphology (Iarge, narrow, pr ojcct-
ing face; no cht n: short, muscular body: and low, lo ng cran ium ) di sap pears arou nd
30.000 years ago and is replaced by th e ana tomically modern huma n form oIt is an
ira ny of preh istor y that these origina lly Afr ican populatio ns seem to h ave don e to
th e indi genous occup ants of Enrope wha t th eir Euro pean descendants would do to
other indigen o us po pulations many years latero
T HE EME RGENCE o r ART
Sorne sort of symb olic representatlon or dec ora tion can be found in all hu man
pop ul ation s, altho ugh not preserved from th e same ti me and not necessarily along
with the ini tial peopling of the area. T he ubiquity of thi s featu re, indicatin g the
exp ression of latent abilities in all people s, m ust have had sorne obvtous value to
have bee n so widely ad opted. Perhaps the real novelty lay in thc per m anence of
d rawing. carving. and sculpting, an d the abilities were not so much lo ng laten t, as
expressed earl ier o n less durable m ed ia {like wood) or in other ways..
lt is hard to know whe ther th ese artistic acti vitie s were gendered- that is to
say, made principally by men , wom en, or bot h . lt is clear, however, that from the
ou tset of the ir detec table expresslon, both carving and pa inting are don e very
skillfully, wh ich may again suggest a tra nsfer of med ia more than an unprece-
dcn ted in novatio n.
. Like the develop ment of modern lan guage, with wh ich it may be connected.
thc devclo pm ent of art (or more br oadly, symbolic representation) has severa l dif-
fere nt an d compl ementar y fu nctlon s, an y of wh ich m ight be its mo st stgn ficant
T
Thc Emergence of Art 229
feature at any par ticu lar time and place. These fun ction s are (1) the ma ter ial o r
utili tari an value that per manently inscribed or deco rated objects m ight serve, such
as m arking terr itory, owrershp. o r sorne form of familiarity, o r m arki ng th e recur-
ren ce of regular natu ral events: (2) the so cial valu e that such goods wou ld have as
marker s of status an d id entity, and in the establish m ent of tra de networks and alli-
ances: (3) the symbolic and esthe tic valuc that em erges from a shar ed und erstand-
ng of th e m eanings of the -objects, an d th e in -group me mbership that such
un derstandings imply; and (4) the numi no us valu , th at is to say, the non-rational,
spiritu al, an d even rnystical feelings tha t such objects can evoke un der the epp ro -
priate settn gs. in stilling courage into th e meek, belef into the du biou s, loyalty
into th e waverlng , or ju st calling for th a warm and fuzzy feeling .
Aside from geo met ric in cisio ns, such as par allel groo ves or regu lar no tches in
bone, the earliest widespread examples of symbo lic art are garne an imals, ant hro-
pom orphic figures, and pregnant women- that is to sayo in dicating strong inter-
ests in food, ritual, and reprod uctlon . But pendants and be ad s also becom e
com mon in th e Upper Paleolith ic, representing oth cr evidences of labor, decora -
tlon, esthet ics, and value.
The cave pain tin g from Uppe r Paleo lithic Euro pe is striking in m any ways,
not least of whic h is its aweso me beauty. Also, however, we hav e the stability of
style fo r tens of tho usa nds of years- as f to say "th is s th e y.ray it is done pro perly;
no room for self-expression here!" 'I'his s com m o n in all but farly recent Eur o-
pean tr ad ition -the art ist tri es no t to emphasize individual style or uniquenes s.
but rath er to do ajob th e way it is supposed to be done (witness the uniform Egyp -
tian art ist ic srvle over hundred s of years) . Further, the cave paint ings dem onstr ate,
within the stylis tic co nstraints, the recogn zably mo dern feature of caricature-
me aningfully exaggerating key features of par ticul ar subjec ts- the ho rn of the rh i-
noceros, the an im al head or m ask of the anthropomorphic figur e. th e swollen
breasts of the pregn an t vom an.
Ano the r com m on them e on th e cave walls is the outline of a ha nd, presum-
ably th e artlst's. Ninety perce nt of the time th e hand on the wall is a left hand, sug-
gesting th at the artist used the d raw ing hand to trace th e other-c-whch also reflects
the proportion of right-handed ne ss in modero human groups.
As m any of th e caves wer e used for tho usands of years , we find that the pie-
tures com mo nly overlayone anoth er. Co nto urs of t he sha pe of th e wall, and phys-
ical features such as cracks in the cave wall, wer e co mmonly incorpo rated into the
figures, and the fact that th ey are located in deep recesses of caves suggests that
they weren't really meant to b e sccn, except on very spe cial occasions. Th en , con -
vening: in the spooky glow of to rchlight, th e tr ibe might have pro ceeded "slaking
the ir ravenous thirst with the ho t bloo d of victims and greedily de vourng livid
writhing flesh," to put sorne of the mo st famo usly purpl e pro se in ant h ropology
int o a slightly dfferen r co ntext (th is was actual1y Raym ond Dart's m isanthropic
vision of early aus tralopit hec ines}, 0 1'more Iikely, they just da nced a bit, said sorne
mumbo -jumbo , an d went h orn e to a restful sleep-conte nted, secu re, and at peace
with the Pleistoce ne unve rse.

230 C HA PTE R 12 WHAT TO D O W H EN CO N FRO N T ED BY A NE ANDERTAL
THE PO LITICAL NATU RE OF ANCEST RY
In 2002. President T habo Mbeki ofSouth Africa gave a speech at the australopith -
ccine cave site at Sterkfontein, an d called it "an important arca that traces th e evo-
lut ion of the significant part of our Earth as we1l as the interdependence of peop les,
plants and animals, thus, in many ways teaching a1l of us how we can co-exlst and
ens ure enduring pro sperity for all species." He conti nue d: "The sequence and
diversity of evdence that is foun d here in Sterkfon tein and in othe r sites, belon gs
not just to South Africans , but also to the whole ofhumanity. This s the wndow
through which we get a glhnpse int o our shared past."
Beyond simply the pride that nations such as China, Kenya, and South Africa
take in regarding themselves as th e "cradle of hu ma nity" because sorne of the most
famous fossils were discavered there. it is important to acknow ledge that human
ancestr y is filled with cultura l m eaning. T he stories th at we tell abou t our origins
and our relation ships to other groups of people may legitimizc or de-Iegitim ize
th eir very existence .
For example, in an age of empire and racism, th e stat istical biologist and
devoted social Darwinist (chapt er 3) Karl Pearson wrote, "a capable and slalwart
race of white men should repIace a dark-skinned tribe which can neither utilize its
land [01' the full ben efit of man kind, nor contr ibute its quot a to the commou stock
ofhum an knowledge," w here no n -Europeans were reviled as "backwards" (rbat s,
they had not part iclpa ted in the history of Europe, but instead had the ir own h s-
tory), the emp lre n eeded a cons ta rit source of cheap raw ma terials to Jmpo rt and a
market for its expo rts, and hu man lfe (,-cpecially that of non -Europeans) was con -
sdered cheap , and biologists were easily able lo co-opt scientific narratives of
ancestry and nature lo ratio nalize land grabbing and geno cide.
Closer to he me, the 1950s and 1960s werc turbu lent times in th e United
States. Older stand ard s ofbehavior were being threatened by rock and roIl an d by
the civil rights movement. The intellect ual backlash they engendered in th e schol-
arly com munity carne initialIy from a psychologst named Henry Garrett (from
Columbia University), an anatomist named Wesley Critz George (from the Un-
versity ofNorth Caro lina) , and a wealthy former airlin c executive named Carleton
Putn am. Th ey used th eir experti se and organizational skills, and mo ney from rac-
ist ph lanthroples, to argue publicly against the integration of public schools. In
the early 1960s, they found an alIy in a prom inent anthropologist at rhe University
of Pennsylvania named Carleton Coon, a relative of Pu tnam.
Coon had devised an idiosyncratic interpretation of the fossil record, which
held that the five kinds of modern peo ple he could identify were detect able as such
in Homo erccus. Each of thern, he believed, evolved largely ind ependent ly intc
Hamo sl1piens- Europeans first, Australian abor igines last. This, Coon fclr.
explained why whites were the "mos t civilzed" of peoples-they had been mem-
' bers of the mo dern species for longer than anyone else. His ideas were quickly
taken up by his segregationist alIies. who wrote. "","lhen.the President of the Amn-
ican Association oC Physical Ant hropologists, a magna cum laude gradu ate of
1
Testing Paleontological Modcls Genetlcally 231
Ha rvard and a native of New England, states that recent discoveries indi cate the
Negro is 200,000 years behn d the Wh ite race on the ladder of evoluo n, this ends
the lntegraton argument"
Actually, it doesn't: an d fortun ately, it didn't. Coon's ideas were shown to be
anth ropological bunkum, and he ended a distinguished career in embittere d isola-
tion. Nobo dy e1se was confident that subspeciflc variatio n in Horno ereetus could
be identifed with such cIarity, mu ch less mat ched up to patte rn s of biological vari-
atio n in modern people hundre ds of th ousand s of years later. Moreover; levels of
civilization were recognized to be contingencies of social histor y, and not genetic
en dcwments of nature. There was in fact no th ing solid to suggest that any human
group was any "less hu man" or "less evolved" than any other, and cert ainly nothing
to suggest we should base socia llegislation upo n such ideas.
Ironica lly, scholars on both the political right (such as the psychologist Henry
Garren) and on the politicalleft (such as the geneticist Theodosius Dobzhanzky;
chapter 5) recognze d the political value of Coons work. The on ly one who denied
It, in a pathetically self-interested stance, was Co on himself Th e fmpo rtant polnt
we Iake away is that our storics of who we are and whe re we carne from do not
existoand have never existed, in a de-politicized world. They are Jadcn with value,
and consequently we are obliged to be very cer tain abo ut our authoritative scien-
flc pronoun cem ents, and we bear a bu rdcn of resp c nsibilty for th eir use and
application.
It is particularly ironic, in light of the claims made by racists in the 196Os. that
we began th is section with a scientificalIy literate quotation from Sout h Afrca's
(black) President, Th abo Mbek. His (white) American coun terpa rt, Geor ge W
Bush , simultaneously expressed the regressive view that creationism sho uld be
taugh t in schoo1as sciencc.
T ESTI NG PALEONTOLOG ICA L MODELS GENETICA LLY
It is not uncommon to hear tha t genet c data can solve social problems (by study-
ing non existent genes for stupidity; crime, and other anti social traits), or that thcy
can resolve our conflicting interpretations of prehist ory by extracting simple pat-
tern s from the gene pool. Usually th e inter pretation of the gene tic patterns turns
out to be jus t as conflc ted: for example, it has been argued, bas ed on genet ic data,
that Palco-Indians entered the Am ricas from Siberia in one wave, two waves,
th ree wavcs, and more than thr ee waves!
However, a landmark stu dy in 1987 attempted to answer the question of
wberher or not global pattern s of DNA variation couJd be rneaningfully re1ated to .
h uman evolution. Rebecca Cann , Mark Stoneking, and AlJan Wilson pioneercd
the use of mit ochon drial DNA (rotUNA; chapter 4) as a rnark er of ancestr y.
Mitocho ndria l DNA has several properti es that make it a llsefu}tool in genelic
stud ies. First, it is easilyseparable fro m the bulk of the DNA, the nuclear genome. I
Second. it is smalJ (16,500 bases) and well characteri zed. Th ird . it is inherited
I
d
1
 232 CHAPTER 12 . W H AT 'ro DO WHEN C ON f R N TE D BY A N EA N DERTA L
donaUy, from m other to offsp ring. Fourth, the re is no recom blnatton. so the
mtDNA m olecul e is passed on acro ss gen er ations as a single intact gene tic uni t.
Fifth , it accumulates rnutations rapidly, so a sa mple ofhu rnans (as lon g as th ey are
not all d ose relatives) willlikely have detec table differenc es. And sixth, th e we now
un derstand the two pri ncipal forces govern ing th e population dynamics of
rntDNA: ran dom lineage ext inction (fam ilies with all boys are rnit ochon dr ialIy
extinct, afte r al] , even if the y are very prolific) and selective sweep s (since the
rntDNA m olec ule is passed on as a single un it without recc mb lna o n, any per iod
of positive selectio n on any part of the mtD NA m olecule would carry the rest with
it, an d essentially wpe out all th e varia tio n in th e rntDNA gene pool).
Cann, Stonekng, and Wilson foun d tha t the sample of Africans su bsumed the
diversity of th e peopIe from other parts of th e worId; and that humans had rela-
tively little genet ic diversity to wor k with in the first place. These data were mo re
co mp atible with the idea that modern humans h ad aris en fairIy recently from a
po pulation in frica, th an with the idea that people have evolved prett y m uch
wh ere they are now, from an cen t, local population s. Th e creative use of genetic
data, therefo re, was able to disti ngu ish between two hypotheses gen erated from
th e paleonto logical dat a. Thi s of co urse doe s not m ean that the que stion of how
modern human evolut on proceeded is closed, for we now know tha t there are
more complicated scenarios th at can acco unt for the genetic pattern, bu t it helps to
sho w th at the re can be points of contact between the diach ronic science of pal eo-
anthropologyand synchronic science of genetics.
Indeed, a stu dy pu blished a de cade later by Svante Pabos research group in
Germany showed th at t race am ounts of m t DNA could be recove red from Nean -
dertal bones and compared to human DNA. They found that it lay o utside the
ra nge of m od ero human varia tion, and thus merits taxon om ic distinction, an d
th ey found no evidence that its DNA bore any spec ial simi lar ity to th e mt D NA of
Europea ns . This s, of course, the sa me pat tern we seem to find in the bon es as
well. This genet ic information , ho wever, do esn't tell us what taxonomic lcvel to
sep arare th e Nean dertals at (although the diversity was m ost com pa rab le te th at
fou nd be tween subs pecies of ch impan zees), nor whether gen e flow was enti rely
ab sent between humans an d Neandertals. Sin ce mtDN A is passe d 0 11 from
mother to chld, with no patern al co nt ribution, thi s result tells us that there was
n o m ajor cont ributio n ofNeand ertal m oth ers to the gen e pool of livin g Europe-
an s. But it says no thing at all abo ut th e po ssib le contribu tion of Nca nde rt al
fathers.
Ano ther kind of stats ucal an alysis us ingglobal var iation in m t DNA sequences
asked abo ut the pattern we m ight exp ect to see if we compa red everyo ne to evcry-
one clse an d tabulated th e detecta ble differen ces each tim e. Such a "m sm atch ds-
tr ibution" pred icts a different pa ttern character istic of a po pulation that has
. steadily inc reased in size, compared to a relatively stable po pulation that expe ri-
en ced a maj or sur ge of growth at som e po int in tim e. SUTe enough, the patteru of
mi sm atches in hu man mt DNA seems most consistent wilh an explo sive rate
of growth about 60~OOO years ago, and ro ugh ly coincid ent wit h the de velo pm cnt of
Refere nce s and Further Readi ng 233
the ar tistlc, sym bolic cultural forros we have come to associate with m odern
humanity.
Studies of nuclear DNA ha ve supported the find ings first esta blishe d with
mtDNA quite strongly. In deed, th e study of genetics has pro duced three well-
establishe d patterns about human prehis tory. First, living humans have a smaJl
fraction of th e genetic variat ion we fin d in ch impanzees and gorlllas, ou r closest
relatives. Th is strongly suggests a different dem ographi c history, and is mos t read-
ily explained as a founder speciation event in the human lin eage.
Secon d, we dont find humans clustering into a sm all number of large and
fairly dis crete groups, OUT popular conceptio n of what "races" ought to be. We do
seem to cluster genet ica!ly into local popul ations, but larger agg1omera tion s are
elusive and un stable, and th us not "natural."
And third , we find an elaboration of cultur e as a ma rke r of ori entation and
identity in pa rallel wit h a reduction in biological diver sity. Two and a half million
ycars ego th ere wcre a rguably th ree genera of horninids; 120,000 years ago there
were arguably ju st three subspecies. Now ther e is ju st one subs pecies, and there is
no argume nt abo ut it. Th ere is so little taxo nomic stru cture within extant Horno
sapiens, and so hu le genetic variation detectable, that the groups we tend to
acknow ledge ar e eithe r bo unded cultur ally (for exarnple, nations or religio ns) o r
not actu ally bounded at all (for example, pig mentation classes, blood gro up s. or
skull shapes).
REFERENCES AND FURTH ER READING
Berm ude z de Castro, l, M ., M. Mar tln on -Tor res, E. Ca rbonell, S. Sarm iento, A. Rosas.'. van
dcr Made. an d M. Lozano. 2004. The Atapuerca sltes and th eir con trlbu on lo th e
kn owledgc of human evolution in Europe. Evolutionary Anthropology 13:25-4 1,
Can n , R. L., M. Stonekng, and A. C. Wilson. 1987. M itoc ho n dri al DNA and h um an evolu -
tio n. Nature 325:31-3.
Ca ramclll, D., C. Lalueza-Iox. C. Vemesl, M. Lerl , A. Cesol , F. Mallengn , B. Chiarell, et al.
2003. Evid en ce for a genetic d iscontn ury between Nean de rtals an d 24,000 an atomi-
cally modern hu m ans. Proceedings of the Natona Academy of Sciences, U S A 100:
6593- 6597.
Caspar, R., and S. Lee. 20:)4. Olde r age becom es co mmon late in human evolution. Pro-
, ('edings oJ the NationalAcademy 01Scicnces, U S A 101: 10895.
Cha sc. P. G., and H . L. Dbble. 1987. M iddle Paleolithic symbolism: A revew of current _"
evde nce an d nterpretatlons. loumal oJ Anthropofogica l Archaeology 6:263-296.
Church ill, S. 1998. Cold adapt aton, heteroch rony, an d Nea ndertals. Bvolutionary Anthro-
pology 7:46 - 6 1.
d'Er r co, F. 2003_The invisible frontier. A multiple sp ecies model for the ori gin ofbehav-
oral m od crn ity Evolutionory Anthropology 12:188-202.
Duarte, C. J. Maurico, Po Petttt, P. Souto, E. Trnkaus, H. Van d er Pllch t, and L Zilhao.
1999. Th e carly Upper Paleolithic hum an skeldon fro m the Abrigo do Lagar Velho
"(Port ugal) : nd mo dcen human em erge nce in Iberia . Proceedings ofthe National Acad-
emy of Scienccs. U S A 96:7604- 7609. ,1
I,
 -,

234 CHAP T ER 12 WHAT TO DO WH EN CON FRQN TED BY A N EAND ERTAL
Rcferences and Purther Reading 235
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Etler, D. 1996. The fossil evidence for h uman evoluti on in Asia. Annual Review oJA nthro- Vekua, A. D. Lord klpanidze, G. P. Rightm ire, J. Agu sti, R. Perring, G. Maisuradze
pology 25,275-301. A'.Mou skhelishvili, el al 2002. A new skull of earl y Horno fro m Dm anis, Geo rgla.
Gabunia, L.. A. Vekua, D. Lordk pan dze, C. Swshe r, R. Perri ng, A. Iu stus, M. Noradze , Setena 297:85-89.
et al. 2000. Earliest Pleistocen e hominid cranial rem ain s fro m Dm ani s, Rep ublic Wilford. J. N. 1998. Ncandert hal or cretin ? A debate over Iodine. The New York Times.
of Geo rgia: Taxonomy. geological setting. and age. Science 288:1019-1025. Decem ber l .
Go ren- Inba r, N . N . Alperso n, M. Kslev, O. Smc hon, Y. Melarned, A. Ben -Nun , and Yamei, H. ~. Pott s, Y. Ba~Yin, ~. Zhengtang , A. Deino, W. Wei. J, Clark, X. Gu angmao and
E. Werke r. 2004. Evidenc e of hominin control of fire at Gesh er Benot Ya'aqov, Israel. H. Welwen. 2000. Mld-P lelstocene Ache ulean -Iike stone techn olog y ofthe Bose Basln
Science 304:725-727. Sou th China. Science 287:1622- 1626. o .
Hcn sh ilwoo d, e, F. d' Err lco, M. Vanhaeren , K. van Niekirk, an d Z. Iacobs 2004. Middle Yellen, J. E. A. S. Bro oks, E. Co rneli ssen , M. J. Mehlman , and K. Stew art 1995. A Middle
Stone Age shell b eads fro m Sout h Africa. Science 304:404. Ston e Age wo rk ed bone in dus tr y from Katand a, Upp cr Semlk l Valley Zaire Scence
Klein, R. 2003 _Wh ith er the Neanderthals? Nature 299:1525-1527 . 268,553-556. ' .
Kroe ber, A. L. 1940. Stimul us di ffusion. American Anthropologist 42:1- 20.
Kuhn. S. L.. M. C. Stne r; D. Reese, and E.. Gule c. 200 l . Ornament s of the earliest Uppe r
Paleolith ic: New inslghts frorn the Levant. Proceedings ofthe National Academy of Sci-
ences, U S A 98:7641- 7646.
Man zi, G. 2004. Hu ma n cvolut lon al the Matuya m a-Brunhes bou nd ary. Evolutionary
Anthropology 13:11- 24.
Mana, G. F. Mall egni , and A. Ascenzi. 200 1. A cranium for the ear lest Euro pean s: Phylo -
ge netc position of the hominid from Cep ra no, ltaly. Proceedings of the National Acad-
emy ofSci ences, U S A 98:10011- 10016.
Me llar s, P. 1998. Th e fate ofthe Neanderthals. Scence 395:539-5 40.
Pear son , O. 2000. Postcranial remans and thc orig in of mo dern humans. Evoutonary
Anth ropology 9:229-247.
Plummer; T. 2004 . Flaked stones and.oId bones: Biolog cal and cul tu ral evolu tio n at the
da....'Il of techn ology. Yearbook of Physica[ A nthropology47:118-1 64.
Rern rez Rossi. F. v.. and J. M. Bermudez de Cas tro . 2004. Surpri sing ly rapid growth in
Neanderthals. Nature 428:936-9 39.
Releth ford, John H . 2003. Refections of Our Post: lfow Human History 1s Revealed in Our
Genes. New York: Perseus.
Schmitz, R. w.. D. Serre, S. Peine, F. Hllgruber, H . Kranitzk, S. Paabo , and F. Sm th. 2002.
Th e Nean der tal type ste revisited: Interd iscplinary investigations of skeletal remans
fro m th e Nea nd er Valley, Germ any. Proceedings of the Natona Academy of Sciences,
U S A 99,13342-13347.
Schwa rtz, J. an d I. Tattersall. 1996. Slgn fcan ce of sorne pr eviously unrecognize d ap omor-
phes in th e n asal regin of Horno neandertba ensis. Proceedings of the National Acad-
emy of Scences. U S A 93:10852- 10854.
Shea, J. J. 2003. Neand ertals, compettion, and the orig n of modern human behavior in th e
Levan t. Evolutionary An thropology 12:1730187.
Simp so n , G. G. 1945. The prin cipies of d assification and a classification of m ammals Bul-
letin o/ the Am erican Museum oJNatural History 85:1-349.
Trnkaus, E. 1983. The Shan dar Neandertals. New York: Acade mic Press.
Trinkaus, E. 200 3. Nea nde rtal faces were no t long; modero human faces are sh ort. Proceed-
ings of the National Academy ofSciences, U S A 100:8142- 8145.
Trinkaus, E., S. E. Church ill, an d C. B. Ruff. 1994. Postcrani al robu stlcity in Horno. 11:
Hu m eral bilateral asymmetry an d bon e plasticity. Ame rican loum al ofPhysical Anthro-
pology93 :1- 34.
i

U

CHAPT ER 13
[ust How Different Is Different?
(On Race)
THEME
T he st udy of hu rna n divcrsity invo lves a negotiat ion be twee n objcctive patterns of
differen ce an d subjective pereeptions of otherness. It s con sequently an inextr ica-
bly bio cu ltural endeavor, and fundam entally anthropo logical. Patterns of hu man
gen etic d iversity do no t map well a nta pattern s of behav iora l diversity, which sug-
gests that be hav ioral genetics has a very lirnite d range of applicability to human
behavior.
RACE
Thcre are fewer terms so widely used, considered so import ant, and yet so imprc-
cisely conceptua lize d as "ra ce."W hi le a11 an cient people wit h sorne tr avel c r tr ade
expc rie nce recog ntzed that peop le far away looked d ifferent from thcm , thcy
invariably int cr preted th at va riation in local term s. Indeed, real variation in phys-
Ical forro was afien mpossble to disentangle from myt hoJogical var iat ion, as
wr iters from ancient Rom e through medieval tim es wrote of people here and
there who h ad heads in their chcsts, or one leg, or n o no se, or sorne such . By the
mi d- 1600s, however, European scho lars had a pr etty good idea of what kinds of
people were real an d whe re th ey lived. Thi s knowledge had come as a cen se-
qu cn ee of th e maritime exp loratio n, tra de with , and co nquest of mu ch of the rest
of the world.
The opening oflong-distarice sea voyages raised an interesting optical illusion
abo ut tr avel. In th e old da ys, you too k boa ts over sho rt d istances and did most of
you r tr avel over land (Iike, say, Marco Polo in the thirteen th cent ury). You migh t
note th e subtle differences in physicaJ form from place to place , but you were not
st ruc k by significant discontin uti es. Now, howcver, you got on board in, say,
Lisbo n , an d got off a few wecks later in the Carbb ean, wh ere the people looked
an d acte d q uite different fro m the last people you saw. Yo u m ight na turally sta rt
236
,
1
Race 237
thi nkin g about th ose consid erable differences an d th e large gap that separa tes you
from one ano the r, hot h mentally an d physically. .
Furt her, the political and eeo nom ic relations between Europeans and ot he r
people had also taken a curious fo rm oBack in Europe, you had a centr alized gov -
ernment regulating an area with fixed boundari es, a nation -state. Now you want to
t rad e with, or explot, OJ subjugate peo ple elsewhere. How do yo u deal with them.
lf they don't have the recogn izable political forms with which yo u are fam iliar, but
rath er have m ore fluid forms of social an d political orga nization i On ce again, you
mi ght naru rally start thinkin g about them as being largely undifferentiated an d
ho rnogen eous, in stark cont ras t to your own frame of reference.
Th is kn d of th ou ght, of course, might he neithe r form al nor conscious, but
just a natural way of maki ng sense of the worl d that Europeans were percei ving in
the 16005. An d thus it vas thar a French physi cian and tr aveler named Prancois
Bern ier in 1684 be cam e the first to propose that the hum an spccies carne natur alIy
divisible into just a few basicaIly diffe rcnt kin ds of people.
Who were they?: the p eople of Eurasia (inclu ding Native Americans), East
Asia, sub-Sal taran Afr ica (excluding the southe rn m ost part ), the Cap e of Goo d
Hop e in southern Africa, an d the Lapps of $candinavia.
Wait a m inute-who are th e Lapp s ofS candinavia?
Actually the Lapp s (or Sam i) are-stereotyp ically, at least- stockily-built
reindeer herders, ethnically dis ti nct from other Scan dinav ians . Of cour se, they
do n't look all th at different; but the y were cons idered an ' other" against who m
Europeans could contrast themselves. The peoples of th e Cape of Good Hope are
k.nown as KhoiSan (and formerly, as "H ottento ts" and "Bush m en"). herders an d
hun ter-gatherers who are bot h somewhat smaller statured and light er com plected
than th eir Ban tu -speaking agrarian neigh bors to the nor th.
It is not clear what Bern ier tho ught he had discovered. Th e dcscenda nts of
different Adams and Bves, perhaps? In 1655, a schola r nam ed Isaac de la Peyr re
ha d writte n a widely noted book o n "pre -Adami tes't-c-people who may have been
separa tely create d by Cod elsew her e and earlier, indepen dently of th e provincial
sto ry recounted in the Hible.
Bern ier's new idea, ho wever, was "good to think with"-a fairly sensible way
of eonc ept ualizing the peoples of the worId: they (am e packaged into d small n U ID -
ber oE fundam entally and geograp hically dis tinct var ieties. Wh en th c great Swedish
nat ur alist Car l Lin naeus {cha pter 2) co nsidered th e place of human s within the
prim ates, an d within the ma m m als, it n aturally occurred to him to incc rporate t he
variation within the huma n species itself into his Iram ework. Followi ng Bernicr, a
geographically bascd divisin of th e hum an species into subspeclcs seemed q uite
nat ur al.
Linnaeus, how ever, was pro ud of all forms of Scandinavian he rltage, and
em braced th e Sami as part of the European subspecies. The Asian subspecies now
encom passed the cnti re continent, as di d the African subs pecies. And fin ally, the
native pe oples of the Americas beeame a subsp ecies of th eir own. So, th ere wer e
now four forma l, geograp hi caUy based subdvislons of the human species: and
238 C HAPTE R 13 1UST H O W DIFFE RENT IS DIFFE RENT?
Linnaeus even color coded th em for your conveniencc-Euro peans wht e, Asians
yellow, Africans black, and Americans red.
It is not clear what Linn aeus th ought he was describing, either, Why would
the boundary of a continent create huma n homogeneity with in it, and categorical
differen ce outs ide of it? In fact, Linnaeus was wor king with two imp orta ntly pre-
m odern concepts. T he first is the idea that an ideal imaginary form underlies real
living groups of animals, and that the task of the scientist is to describe that ideal
form by studying the real variatic n in nature, and magning just what it is that
each par ticular creature is a deviation from . Th is is called cssentialism (Ch apter
I
3), and is root ed in the ideas of Plato and Aristotl e. That is why Linnaeus could
defin e Horno sapiens europaeus albus (white European Homo sapiens) as having
blue eyes and flowing blon d hair. Th e fact th at mo st Europeans did not have those
features was irrelevant; Linnaeus was describing some thing eternal and me taphys-
ical, th e essence of the European, not some thing earthly, like the attributes of real
Europeans. Wh at his "Europ ean" meant, where it carne from , or even where it Is,
are no t que stions he addressed.
The second pre-rnodern idea applie d here by Linnaeus is th at the microcosm
(t he small universe) map s directly on to the macrocosm (the big uni verse). Lin-
n aeus was tr ained in medicine. and do cto rs in the eighteenth centur y were taught
that the body is composed of four tluids or humors: bloo d, bile, black bile, and
ph legm. Th ese wcrc fam iliar especially in their Greek n ames: sanguis, chole, mel-
anchole, and phlegma; and had to be present in a proper balance for the body to be
in goo d health. Imbalances led to personality flaws and poor physical and mental
health. Linn aeus tran sferred this idea to the hu man species as a whole, assigning
each of his four human subspeces a dom inant p ersonality from each of the four
humors. Europeans werc hearty, or sanguine; American a irascible, or cholerc,
Asians serio us, or melancholy; and Africans lazy, or phlegmati c.
Thus , Linna eus inscribed the human bo dy itself on the human species, at least
as bo th were und erstood in the eighteenth century. whle th is is obviously highly
cultur alIy inflected, Linnaeus had such an immense impact upon biology th rough
his breakth rough in orderi ng and classifying the natur al world, that his basic
app roach became the basis for und erstand ing huma n diversity as well.
1 peans" racia lly; but not juxtaposing West Afrieans against East Africans racially, .
Outside the corridors of academia, h owever, Linn aean taxonomy was resisted
by the great French naturaJist and writer, Count de Buffon (ch apter 2). Buffon abo
resisted any such organizing theory below the level of the human speces, describ-
ing the continuous variation of the hum an species as consisting oflocal "races"-a
term he used with no precise mean ing, in the sense of a "strain" or "lneage,' ano:!
certa inly not to denote a form al taxo nomic category of peopIe. But Linn acus's sy...
tem and approach eclipsed Buffon's work, because it obviou sly wor ked very well
for mos t of the nat ural world.
By th e end of the eighteenth cen tury, johann Fricdrich Blumen bach becamc
the foremost studen t of the hu ma n form and, like Buffon, was str uek not so
much by the discontin uities, as by th c eontinuities-as indeed most scholars had
traditionally been , until scarcely a century earlier. But in arder to study natural
Patterns of Contemporary Human Variation 239
variao n scient ifically, one had to follow Linnaeus and classify.Th us, Blumenbach
cou ld para doxica lly write, "e ne variety of mankind does so sensibly pass into the
oth er, that you cannot mark out th e limits berween them" and yet proceed to mark
out the limits of five of the rn. He named them after their most beautiful represen-
tative skulls, and called them Ethiopian , Mongolian, Malay, American , and (his
most famous category ) Caucasia no
SchoJars of the early nineteenth cen tury proceeded to take Buffons word
("race") and apply it lo Linna eus's concept (rhe form al subspecies). The scientific
study of human diversity conseque ntly beca me the study of how man y differe nt
kinds of people there are and how they differ. For the next 150 years, however,
scholars could n't agree on what traits were most important, how man y groups
there really were, or wl:o might be in them. What they did no t qu estion was their
assumption tbat race was the m ost impo rtant organizing principIe in und erstand-
ing how humans dffer from one ano the r.
PATT ERNS OF CONTE MP O RARY H UM AN VARIAT ION
By the end of World War JI, in which mystical ideas about race figured pro mi-
nently in Nazi ideology, scholarly thought abou t race had chan ged in a sign ificant
way. Earlicr cssen tialist approaches envisione d race as a par! of a person, as their
core identity. Thus even Har vard's Earnest Hoot on could write th at a person migh t
look white and "really" be black, or vice-vers a; to him race was a matter of diag no -
sisoA ncwer concept of race, a "population" concepto reversed the relatonship,
conceivi ng of peo ple as parts of races, rat her than races being parts of people. How
could you now look ORe thing and "really" be anot her! You were par t of a geo-
graphical group. el' perhaps of muItiple gcographic gro ups, and that was that. Race
was an cestry- it was just geography and gen eucs, which left noth ing to dlagno se.
And race was real people, not abstr aet ideas.
The new conc ept cf race was more empiric ally based, but soon also collapsed
un de r its own weight. After all, pop ulations can be subdivided endlessly; was
there anyt hing biologically natural abou t juxtaposing "Afrcans" against "Euro-
or northern Europcans against southern Europ eans racially? What of the peop les
of Pakista n or Sri Lanka, who facially resemble Europeans, are da rkly complected
like Africans, and are Irom the continen t of Asia? Wh at abou t thc Pygm ies, th e
Basques, the Polynesians, and all th e other local varia nts of the hum an race?
What mak es a diffcrence count! Wit hout a d ear or "objective" answer to this, the
numb er of racial categone s th at specialists recognized could becom e quic kly
multiplied.
Moreover, they were now seen by ou tsiders to be loaded with cultural value,
and not at all rcflecve of natural pattern s of variation. For example, th e geneticist
Williarn C. Boyd wrote a review in the jo urna l Science in 1963 in which he
iden tified thirteen raees of people. Th e "European group" comprised five faces: (l )
Basqu es, (2) Lapps, (3) Northwest Europ eans, (4) Eastern /Central Europeans, and
.,,
 I
240 CHAPTE R 13 JU ST HQW DIF FERENT IS DIFFERENH
(5) Mediterraneans. The sixth race was Afrcans: the seventh, Asians: the eighth,
Indo-Dravidians; an d the ninth, Ame rican Indians. Finally, the "Pacifc group "com -
prised (10) Indonesians, ( 11) Melanesians, (12) Polynesians, an d (13) Austra lians.
But what could possibly be natural about seeing five kin ds of Europeans and
onl y one kind of Asian ? By wh at stretch ofthe im agina tion could th e Basques of
the Pyrenees Mountains be considered the taxonomi c equ ivalent of the Africans?
In fact, th e entire enterprise was riddled th ro ugh with cultural values ab out
"h ow df ferenr is dfferent'' and what dffer ences "count," in addition to the cul-
tural problem identi fied by Blumenbach , namely, forcing yourself to draw formal
divisions wher e no ne exist in nature.
Pcrh aps race nee ded to be "un tho ught" as a concep t, and human variatio n
examined outside th e Linnaean framewo rk of form al ncsted categor ies. W hen
anthropologists did th at, no t coinci den tally around the ti me of the Civil Rights
Movement, the y once again iden tified the pattern that had been obsc ured since
the earliest days of colonialsm: namely, tha t people differ gradually from on e
ano ther geographicalIy. We call th is pattero "clnal," and th e anthropological
geneticist Fra nk Livingstone summarized its rediscover y epigram ma tically in
1962: "T here ar e no races, there are only clines,"
Th e introduction of genetic studles in the 1960s provid cd some valuable
qua ntitative data, but also provde d a data ser th at (unlike physical app eara nce)
was gene ralIy not m odifiable culturalIy, and not subject to the same crude set of
intellectua l biases th at had beset classical ant hr op ological studes, which were
invari ably based on h ow peopIe "looked. Yet th e pattern s bctween ph enotypcs
an d genes were highl y con cordant. Ever ywh ere you studied, you foun d peo pIe
blending into one another physically and gen eticalIy.
In other words, toa first approximatlon, people are similar to those close by,
and they are different from those far away- but th at no more telIs you the re are 3
kinds of peopl e tha n it tells you the re are 5, oc 20, or 100.
\"l hy does th is pattern exist? Quite simply, it is the h um an mode of life: trade,
sociality, and interbre eding. Natural selection adapts populations to their enviren-
ments, which var}' locally; genetic drift makes local populations slightly different
fro m one an ot ber: and gene flow connects th cm. The pattern of dfferen ce that we
see between populatio ns is principally local variation. Int erestingly, even that dif-
fer ence s a small par t of Ihe pictur e ofh ow humans d iffer- for most of our varia-
tlo ns can be found within a single population .
Consider the ABO blood group (chapter 4) in which three principal alleles are
kn own. And yet. all popula tions have the m (Native Amcricans have lost nearly al!
thei r B alleles, an d are over whelm ingly 0 , but they are excep tiona l in this rcgard).
Wh at they differ in Is sim ply the relative pro po rtions oft he three alleles. Th ere are
a1so rare alleles foun d in sorne members of sorne populatiom , r.ut neither uf these
~ ap s weUon to ide as of race; and it seems to be parad igm a le for th e way gen etic
variatio n is structu red in our species.
Anthropologists had long known that far more diversity exists within any human
race than betvveen them , but had never been ab]c to qua nlify that ob s ~rvatio n .
Patterns ofCon tcmporary Huma n Variation 241
Beginn ing with a classic study by Rich ard Lewontin in 1972, il tur ns out that whai-
ever gene tc system you study-protein variations, mtDNA, short redund ant seg-
ments of nuclea r DNA- you fin d that 85-95% of the variation exists within
populations, and only 5~ 15% distinguishes populations from one another (and of
cour se, mu ch of that s local differenti ation, not global). The re is geographical
struc ture to the sma ll amount of between -group variation, but cven that ls pat-
tem ed princi pally clir.alIy and locally. The most significant implication of the
genetic work is th at the gen e pools of large hu man groups are not at all dscrete,
and overlap tremen dously.
A mo re importanl consideratio n, however; is what the con ditions oft he mo d-
ern world in th e last sao years, perha ps twenty gene ratons, have done to thc
human population s of th e world, even thc rnost remete ones . A major conse -
quence of colonia lism was the large-scale resettlement of people away from their
"ancestral" land and into majo r cornmunities elsewhe re. Thi s resettlemcnt run s a
gam ut from vol unta ry migration , through econom ic or political coercin, to cap-
ture and enslaveme nt . Th e result has been the development of enormous diaspora
popu lations, many ofwhich have existed for cent urie s (t he term diaspora is an
extension oEa word that in itially referre d to the forced dispe rsal of the [ews from
their hornel and Into the Babylonian Empire, after being conquered by Nebuchad-
nezzar in the sixth century BC). .
Not only are diaspora communities interesting to cult ural anthropologists,
but the y have been interesting to biologcal anth ropologists as well. Members of
such cornm unities develop physically somewhat differen tly in thei r ne w land (see
below), an d m ay also face part icu lar new bomedcal problems. Diaspora commu-
nitles also create high ra tes an d new patterns of gene flow, making the human
popula tion more hom ogencous.
In add itio n to imm igratio n, the consequence of eolo nialism , there is also an
effeet of ind ustriali sm, namely, th e movement of enormous nu m ber s of people
away from their rur al hornes and th cir coalescence in urb an cen ter s. Howcver
strong the traditi on o endo gamy, or marr ying your own kin d, might be, the coa-
lescence oflarge numbers of diverse peo ple in sma ll reas also in creases the rate of
gene flow trcme ndously.
Indeed, thcse two demo graphic factors- imm igration and urbanlsmc- produc ts
of the political economics of colo n ialis m and industrtalisrn , have cha nged thc
biology of the hum an speces enormou sly. Wha t does it mean to produce a "racial
map" that shows Am rica to be the land of Indi ans, Afr tca the land of Africans,
and Europe th e land of Europeans, when the large majority of people in the
United Sta tes are of princi pally European descent , 12% self-identify as having
principally African ancestry, and less than 2% claim to have any Native American
ance stry at all! Such a map would be entirely disconn ecte d fra m the modeen
world.
The bio-demographic issues assume an CYen greater significanee in thc hotl)'
potitical aren a of land rights issues. If we agree that indigenous people haye been,
and in many cases still are being, unfairly stripped of their land an d possessions,
1I

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242 C HA PTE R 13 JUST IJO W D IFFE RENT IS DI FFEREN T?
and are entitled to som eth ing for It, who counts as ind igenous? Is th erc a statut e of
lim itations th at permi ts us to declare that a South African KhoiSan (itsclf a category
reflecting the m ixture of two peoples who on ce saw the mse lves as distin ctly differ-
ent from on e ano th er) is m ore ind igcnous th an a Bantu speaker, who se ancestors
entered th e area a few thousand years ago, and even more so tha n a Boer, whose
ance stor s have been living th ere for 300 years? How far back do your roo ts have to
go before you can stop being an invaderand start beng considered as native ?
In short, races- as lar ge, taxonomic groups of people-are op cal Illusions,
the result ofimposing cultural categori es of mean ing upon natural patterns of var-
iation. Catego ries of identity wiIl always be with us, but th ose identities have
evolved, and will contin ue to change . for th ey are catego ries of political salience ,
no t catego ries ofb iological transcendence.
WH Y DO W E SEE RACES?
The patt ern we find in huma n genetics is known as isolation by distan ce- th e
farther away two populatio ns are. the more d ifferent th ey appear. Sup pose wc were
to bring large nu mbers of people from th ree very dfferenr parts of th e world
together : what would we see?
We wouJd obv iously see a few di fferent kinds of people. Clearly, that is so rne-
thing like what took place in American history, with Iarge numbers of immigrants
from West Afric a, northern Europe~ and east Asia supe rimposed on an in digeno us
population .
American th eories of race are naturally related to th e histo ry of Ame rica n
slaver y. In the dcc ades before the Civil War. slavery's de fenders were able to m ar-
tiaI th e earliest American physical anthropolog y for th eir cause: the poly genist
theories (chapter 2) of ]osiah Nott and Geo rge Gltddon, auth ors of "Indigen ous
Races of th e Earth," This work, by a physician and a diplom ar, purp orted to sho w
th at the ra ces are as they always have been -c- m ade separately by God. Not t an d
Gliddon rna de U St' of an old interp retation of Noah's ark, wh ich held tha t after the
ark Janded, No ahs thr ee so ns went off in differen t di rections to found their own
conli nents. Writing before the development of mod ern theories of hered ity o r evo-
lution , Nott and Glid don rnain tained tha t th e desrc ndants of Ham be came Afri-
can s, the descend ants of Shcm bec ame Asian s, al,,; the descend ants of [aph eth
be cam e Europea ns. Th eir essential d ifferenccs werc pas sed on intact over the gen-
erations since the Floo d, and where the desc cnd ants late r carne into contact, they
produced intermediate races.
Polygenl sm , then, held that th e races par took of fixed differen ces, in scr ibed
by God , wh ether the y were inhe rite d from dfferent sons of th e same pat riarch , or
were (in a slightly different version) simply products of differ ent creativ e acts.
Mono gensm, by contrast, took Biblical literalis m -c-weare aHpro d ucts of the sam e
creative acto Ada m and Eve-as a jus tification for the abolition of slavery. The
monogenista bolstered th eir position empi ricallywith the recognition tha t humans
interbred Ireely all over the worl d.
-------~--~.~~.-====-===-
Why Do We See Races? 243
Neither position is really "r ight "- since both are based on pr e-m odern
co ncepts. However, the racist position does yield sorne testable hypothe ses:
Was th ere ever a tim e when people occupied Norway, Nigera, and Ca mbodia,
but not the pla ces in between ? Of course no t; th e earliest evidence we have for
m odern peopl e co mes pre ciseIy from th ose in-between areas, east Afr ica an d
west Asia!
Indecd, even today, it is common to hear people naively th ink ofWest Afri-
cans, East Asians, an d Northcrn Europeans as being the purest or mo st an cient
repr esentatives of the ir respective continental races. But actually th e trai ts we
id entify as "racial"- skin color, hair form ofacial contour-are the resuIts of selec-
tion and dr tft, so th at the people furthest away sirnply look the mos t di fferent . But
th cy are by no means the purest, or mo st primo rd ial peoples: they are simply th e
farth est apar t.
We know very litt le about the ori gn or possib le adapt ive sgnfcance of ha ir
form or facial contou r (e.g. no rthern Euro pean s tend ing to have lo ng, narrow
noses; east Asian s tending to have wde, flat faces; Africans ten ding to have tight1y
curled ha r]. But wc have learne d somet hing about skin colo r. Modern humans
seem to ha ve bcco m e depigm ented as they m oved into northerly (an d southcrly)
latitudes, owing to th e reductio n in sunlght, an d in particular, of ultravolet rays
in tho se latitud es. People ne ed to produce vitamin Di.which is stimulated by ultra-
violet light. Whe re there is plenty of sunlght, in th e trop ics, th e dark skin pigment
melanin screens out the surplus, preventing skin cancer (t riggered by too m uch
ultravolet light ). The ultraviolet light also breaks down a che mical called folate,
too little of which can cause birth defects. But wh ere sunli ght is at a prcmium ,
especialIy seasonally, it was apparentl y ad aptive to lose the mel anin and allow the
body to ma ximize the production of vitamin D.
Consequently, skin color fo11ows a cline that maps very closely on to th e
am o unt of ult raviolet ra diaton that can pe netrare the at mosphere at different
latitudes .
Given th e his to ry of slavery, of course skin colo r has become an importan t
m ark er of ide ntity in America. In earlier times, whe n it was llegal for whites an d
blacks to m arry (a situation called "m scegenaon" in the parla nce of t he age), OUT
socie ty was legally obliged to define who fell int o each cate gory. We ado pted th e
"one d ro p of blood" rule. whereby any am ount of non-white ancestry- usually a
singl e great grand parent-would place you in the non-white category. That obvi -
ou sIy enlar ged the category "bleck" to includ c peo pIe of varying degrees of d versc
ancestry. In Nort h America, "black" and "white" became exclusive categ ories, and
th e anc llary r ule of "hypodescen t" (f yo ur par en ts are of di fferent races, you
belong to the one with th e lower social status) kept the cat egor les qualtarvely
discre te and distin ct.
Th is is a cultur al system of heredity th at maintains ra ces by pat rolling their
bo undaries vigilantly, and by defining intermediacy out of existence . It is a work-
abJe system ofh eredity and de scent , but hardly hears any relationsh ip to bo logtcal
reality.
 244 C H A PTE R 13 JUST HOW D1FFER ENT rs DIF FEREN T?
The racial system that emerged in Latin America is different. There, subtle
social rankin gs emerge from nuanced categories of skin color. In other words, they
have "race" there too, but conceptualized in a ver y different way.
It is the tlexibi1ity of racial categories and conceptualizations, both across
nations and through time, that permits us to see that the basis of the concept of
race is culturally complex, rathe r than a simple observatlon from nature . And it is
one of the funda mental aspects of anthropology to recognize that the way thin gs
appear to be cornmonly dep ends more upon the cultural lenses wtth which YO il
f asked whether you are Hispanic, and the next question asked for your race. But
examine them, than upon the way they "really" are.
The cultural practice of assigning people to flxcd, discrete racial categories. in
defiance of actual patterns of biological diversity in our speces, Is one facet of a
mor e genera l cultural practice known as "naturalizing d fferencc" This involves
rationalizing social dstnctions via an argume nt that those distinctions are actu-
ally the products of genetics oc biology or sorne constitutional endowrnent, rather
than being products ofhistor y or human agency. This is the logie that comm only
sets pharaohs or emperors aboye their subjects, aristocrats over peasants, and con-
querors over victims. We encounter it again when we examin e gender.
Ano ther way to gan an appreciation for race as a cultural construction is to
consider the way in which racial categories come into existence and pass out of
existence over a few generations-like ideas, not like natural entities. At the turn
oft he twentieth century, most Euro-Amerieans distinguished not only blacks and
whites racially, but a1so other marginalized Europeans, notably Irish and Iews.
Many Iews or gnated in Eastern Europe, and the Irish obviously originated in
northwest Europe, and since we know that geograph y is a significant detenninant
of human variation , they both looked physieally distinct. But those physicaJ d ls-
tinctions were greatly augmente d by stylized form s of posture, dress, movement,
attitude, and speech, which cxaggerated their physical distinctivencss. (We refer to
the Iatter kinds of attrib utes below as ethn icity.)
Over the course of the twentieth centu ry; no t only was there sorne intermar-
riage among the group s. but more importantly, as Irish and Jewish immig rants to
America entered the middle class in large number s, their physical distinctiveness
seemed to diminish with cconomic and social assimilation, and they simply lost
much of the "othemess" by which they had been form erly set apart as racially ds-
tinct. Nowadays we recognize Irish and [ewish as eth nicities, but not as races. Of
course , sorne peopIe "look lrish" or "Iook Jewish"- but many more members of
both groups don'r. And cven people with "the look" may not even know if they had
ancestors belonging to those groups!
The oppasite situation is also instru ctive: the category "Hspanc,"which was
nota categor y a hu nd red years agc (even though such people obviously existed!),
but is a very mporta nt one in America today. Yet consder the ver v ame, which
denot es a group of peopIe defined by language, no t by biology or gengraphy. One
can be Hispanic and (due to colonial history) have ancestr y principally from peo-
pIes of nearIy anywhere-Spain, Mxico, the Carbbean, South America, west
Africa, the Philippines. With such an un -biological basis, it Is neverthel ess also
Race as a Bocultural Category 245
true that people can sometirnes be identified as Hispanic by their "looks" His-
panic, as a category of demographic and polltcal salience, has become "racialized"
in American socery, to the extent that many Americans have no problem in con-
sidering "Hispan lc' to be a race.
This caused sorne problems on the 2000 U.S.census. The census takers wanted
to tabulate the Hispanic population , but also quite reasonably dd not want to call
Hispanics a race, recognizing it as a category defined by language. So one question
many people who self-identified as Hispanic proceeded to skip the next question ,
because they figured ihat they had just answered it. The 2010 Census specifies,
"Por this Census, Hispanic origins are not races."
Once agan, this is not to say that there are no pattern s of biological variation
in humans. Rather, these patterns of biological variation do not map easily on to
racial categories. The racial categories are fctlons, but bologcal variation is real;
and even more real are the social consequences of the pseudo -biological racial
categories.
RACE AS A BIOCU LTURAL CATEGO RY
The cultur al theorist Donna Haraway has said that "race is a verb." What she
means is that race is a process of cultural assignment, involving arbitrary decisions
about what categories are to be recognized, what criteria are used in assigning
people to those categories, and ultimatcly who is to be placed in them. It is not a
fact of nature, but an act of culture, a social construction and a means of natura l-
izing difference. This does not, however, mean that everyone is the same. Anthro -
pology is predicated on the study of human difference. If evcryone were the same,
there could be no anthropology. Rather, reeognizing that racc is a social construc-
tion means that whatever patterns of biological variation are "out there" do not
map readily on to the social categories articulated by race, and th us are not rele-
vant to explaining the social differences that race encodes, no r to explaining much
of the variation in the lives and fortunes of ordinary people.
Thus, race is a biocultural category, that is to sayothe facts of biological differ-
ence rende red sensible by cultural perceptions of other ness. Culture not only
informs us "how different is different"-that is to sayowhat klnds of people need to
be placed into dfferent categories- but also exaggerates the differences among
groups beyond simply genetic features. The hological variation is in the form of
the gene pool, and thecultural variation is in the forrn of the speech pattero s, body
movements, typical attitudes and beh aviors, diet, and oth cr non -genetic markers
of social identity. vVe refer to these as eth nicity, and dr awing the distinction
between these two dimensions of variation was the majar contribution of anthro -
pology in the twentieth cent ury.
It was the great anthropologst Franz Boas who demonstrated that the physi-
cal features that distinguish groups from one anothcr comprise a far larger uni -
verse than the genetically determined physical fearures that distinguish groups
I
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 246 CHAPT ER 13. JUST HQW DIFFER ENT IS DI FFERENT?
from ene another. He studied Italian irnm igrant s to New York from Sicily and Iew-
ish irnmigrants from Eastern Europe. The form of the head, ranging from globular
(brachycephalic) to elon gated (dolichocephalie). was known to dfferent ate peo-
pies from one another and to have sorne kind ofbiologieal basis. But Boas showed
that the aet of immigrating to a new eoun try (and eircumstances of growth ) can
change the shape of the head dramatically. Long-headed Iews were more round
headed the younger they had immigrated, and th eir childre n who grew up in
Ame rica were more round head ed still. And the opposite situat ion was found for
the Sicilians. Obvio usly p eople weren 'tjust morphing into one another, but subtIy
different aspe cts of th e cond itions of life appa rentIy worked to exaggerate the
physical dfferences of th e different popu lations in their native lan ds.
Boas initiated the study of immigrants, and his findings were soon replicated
for man y other group s of pecple, m ost no tably [apanese immigrants to Hawaii.
There, Harr y Shapiro and Fred Hulse found that Iapanese who had immigrated to
Hawaii were physically statistically different from their relatives who had stayed
behind; and their children who had been bo ro in Hawaii were more dfferent still.
ALa cert ain Jevel, this was a trivial findl ng, that the environment contribu tes to the
deveIopment of ph en otyp es. But at another level, t was very dsconcertl ng to stu-
dents of race, who had generally assumed that any regularl y visible difference in
app earance must have a genetie etoogy It was becoming dear tha t the universe
of genetically based differences was only a smaJl subse t of th e un iverse of visible
differences between group s of peopIe.
One such dfferen ce tha t has succumbed to scientific scru tiny is the dfference
th at one commonJy finds amo ng different group s of people in IQ. The IQ, or intel-
ligen ce quoti ent , is a number that is caleula ted from the perfor mance on a stan-
dar dized test. Obviou sly some thing as complex and rnultifaceted as intelligencc
cannot realIy be collapsed nto a sing le number, with different people linearly
ranked according to how much of it they havc. Linearizat ion is itself a highly cul-
tura l value. Equally obviously, your perform ance on a test can't be det ermined by
your genes, but must also reflect in part the educat ional experiences ofthe subject.
A ~t er all. ir you've never been expose d to the word "rho do dendron" how could
you reasonably be expected to know what it means? (It's a flower.)
We now know th at IQ is very sensitive to the social environment, and the
effects of social prejudice can be signi ficant and con sistent. Koreans fare con sis-
tently worse than [apane se 0 0 such tests in [apan , whe re they are an un der privi-
leged minority, but equal to [apa nese in Am rica, wherc their social stat us Is
equivalent. Likewise, the gap between the IQ ofbJacks and whi tes in Am erica van -
ishes the more carefully tha t social variables are evened out, or con trolled. There
seems to be no good reason to regard groop-e verage di ffcrences in IQ to be inn atc,
other than a malicious desire to "natur alize difference,"
lt was generally held by the 1960s that race was a "natural" catego ry, and eth -
nkity was a "cultur al" one . That distinction was important, but we now realize that
it was an oversimpliflcation. We now kno w that race is also a category cultur alIy
con structed in other ways, but still significantly diffcrcnt from the constructed
Asking Scientfc Ouestons abou t Human Dversiry 247
differences we call ethnicity. Moreove r, if we accept the dichotomy between natu-
ral and cultura l varation, it is har d to kn ow into which categor y to put differences
in head shape, which have a genetc and an environme nt al component. The
dich otomy. then, is a fa'se d ichotomy; but the difference it highlights is a cr ucially
important one.
ASK ING SC IENTI FIC QUESTI ONS ABO UT
H UMAN DI VERSITY
Knowing what we do. how can we study human diversity scientifically if race is not
its basic organ izing vector? In fact, th ere are four broad strategies of scientific
rcsearch on human variation tha t no t only show how human variation can be
studied without race, but how race woul d be positively mtsleadin g if it were con -
sidered un eritically to be a genetic feature .
The first study invoIvcs the commo nly social orig in of race-based d isparities
in health matters. To the cxtent that blacks and whites are at different risks for
being afflcted by certain discases and h ow they run the ir cou rse, nea rly all ofthese
disparities are elirninated by controlling the data for economic status and aceess to
health careo
Sorne are not , hov..ever, sueh as hypertension in ,m en (blacks at a significan tly
higher risk) and low birth weight in wom en (again black rnothers at a significantly
higher risk). Both of thes e have been regarded as genetically based, since even
when controlled for the variables that even out other dfferences , these two are still
there.
On the oth er hand, in th e case of hypertension , we find that AfTican blacks
don't have th e samc high risk; only American blacks do. That makes it sound a bit
less genetic. And in the case of 10w birth weight, a cohc rt ofblack African immi-
grants to Am erica has a distrib ution of baby birt h wcight that parall els that of
whit e American mot hers, not black Am erican mothers. O nce again, that makes it
sound a bit Iess genetic; indee d it looks as if the dffcrenr experience of growing up
blaek in America versus growing up white in Am rica m ight be a source of sig-
nificant biom edical differen ce.
Notice, h owever, that th ese differences are hoth racial (in that the sample was
cons tructed racially, contrasti ng blacks and whitcs) an d probably non -genet ic.
T his can tell us rather little about the categories of race, but it can tell us a lot about
th e effeets that different racialized life experiences can have on a person ; or in
otbe r words, abou t the effeet of a disparity of social circumstances on generally
rather evenly matched bodtes.
A second area of study involves th e orign and basis of those physical features
that we key on , (oc example, skin color. It has long been th ought th at perhap s slx
or so genes control sk!n color variation in hum ans. But we still have no idea whcre
they are and what the y do, even with the Hum an Gcnome Project complcted. Ho w
can we study them? Obvious ly we necd to contrast very dar k peopIe lo vcry light
peopl e. In this case, however, you wouId have to sort peopIe by the literal color of
I1-
248 C H A PTE R 13 J U5T HO W DI FFE RENT 15 DI FFER ENT?
the ir skn, not by their racial category. Cont rasting the extremes will get you what
you need, but relying on the broa d categories of race would be a signiflcant hin -
dr ancc to the project.
A th ird research problem is the geograp hic distribution of human traits, both
gcnctic and phenotypic. Suppose we wish to study, once agaln, skin color- how
valuable is race for such an endeavo r? Actually, again it is quite intrusive. After all,
skin color s clinally distrib uted, and contrasting the most depigmented peoples of
Eurasia against the rest of the world hardly reproduces race. Very darkly prg-
men ted people are found in central Africa, south Asia, Australia, and Melanesia;
very lightly pigmented people are found in northern Europe and Asia, and people
of intermediate comp lexion over the whole world-of what use is race here?
Or alternatively,we could look at the distribution of a gcnctic trait, such as the
allele for sckle-cell anemi a. In Amrica, it s found dspropor on ately in African
Am ericans (l in 13 being a carrier). But a large number of cases occur in people
with no known or identifiabIe African ancestry. Why?: Because the allele spread in
con nection with malaria resistance wherever humans began irrigating fic1ds to
growc rops (except in the Americ as). Consequently, people of south Asia, the Mid-
die East, and the Mediterranean have elevated frequencies of the sickJe-cell allcle.
None has it as high as the populations of west and central Africa do, and the
KhoiSan of southern Africa do not seem to have elevated frequencies. So once
agaln, how does race hcIp us understand sickle cell! Of course, race is import ant
for getting inform ation lo the social eornm unities al grcatest risk; but it doesn't
help us understand sickle-cell anerriia it or treat it.
FinalIy, und erstanding the causes, diagnosis, and making medi cal services
avaiJable to any popula tions at elevated risk for any genetic disease is an important
sclentlflc project. But again, race fails us, bccau se th e dlscascs are invariably non-
ra cial. Conslder cystic flbrosis, which affects prin cipaJly pcople of European
an cestry (l in 25 is a carrie r, as opposed to 1 in 100 Asians), but is a greatcr risk for
nor th ern Europeans than for southern Europcans. Although the data havc bccn
coIlected racially; the clinal nat ure of the real pattern s of variation makes th e risk
of cystic fibrosis different for natives of northern France and southern Franee,
muc h less Denmark and Turkey. So imposing race on these data simply obscures
th e real pattern that exists because of the structu re that is present withi n aoy of the
large "racial" categories.
Ashkenazi [ews (from Eastem Europe) have slightly lower risks of cystic
fibrosis th an the grand European ;werage, but in line with what would he expected
from southeastern Europeans. BtH they also have a cluster of disease at high fre-
quen cies, several of them on the same physiological pathways, involving the
met abolism ofmolecules in neurons. Th e mo st weU-known of these is Tay-Sachs
Discase, with a carrier rate of 1 in 30 Ashkcna zi Iews, abou t 10 times higher th an
the rest of th e world.
". But bow does racializing Tay-Sachs belp us? First of all, no knowledgeable
studcnt of hu man diversiry would call Ash kcnazi Iews a race. Second of all, 29 in
3D have no conncction lo thc disease at all. This is a disease, like marry; for which
Raee Is to Ethnciry as Scx Is to Gendcr, But Not Quite 249
l certain popul ations are at hgher risk tha n othe rs; but th is is a biological correlate
[ of a group membershp th at is not itself bologically based. Indeed, Tay-Sachs is
also elevated amo ng French Canadians and Cajuns.
t RA CE IS T O ET HN ICIT Y AS SEX IS T O GEN DE R,
BUT NOT Q UI T E
In th e mid-twenti eth century, it began to be appreciated that the issues aroun d
which the civil rights movement coalesced were not really about race, that is to say,
about biological differences. Rather, th ey were about exclusin, prejudice, eco-
nomic inequality, and access to th e opportunities for up,..-ard mobility. These
issues were not faced by black peopIe alone, but by various immig rant and non-
immigrant groups: [ews, Irish, Asians, Italians, Latinos, women, homosexuals.
Th e idea of "ethnicity" carne to represent tho se non-biologicaI features th at
iden tify people as mernbers of grou ps in tran splanted or urban populations. Sorne
aspects of those identities may be tangible and physical, such as patterns of scari-
fcation, hair style, and overaU bodily comportmenl. Oth ers may be related to
subtle patlern s of social prejudice, such as expectations about what one is "sup-
posed" to be good at, or dietary stress. And still others are the organ izing minutiac
of everyday life- such as th e cIothing, speech pattern, or belief system.
The women's movement in th e mid-twentieth century adopted a dichotorny
to paraUelrace and ethnicity. Certainly the most familiar biological distinction in
the hum an species is the universal division of people into two types: women
and meno And yet that natural biological distinct ion is augm cnted culturally in
profou nd ways, from early life. Grls are taught cultural appropriate femi nine
behavors and altitudes, and boys are laught cultural ly approp riatc masculine
coun terpa rts.
Of cour se, wh at attitudes and beh aviors are considered tu be masculine and
feminine vary widely cros s-culturally, as Margaret Mead SIHJ\ved in her 1935
classic, Sex and Temperamen t. Those cultural feature s, wh ich are ovcrlaid on
th e male-fema le biological dicho tomy and serve to reinforce it , carne to be
known as gender. Thus twentieth-century anthropology called attcnt ion both
to th e cultural rcin forcemen t of racial difference and in pa rallel to the cultural
reinfo rcement of sexual difference, and called them , respectively, eth nicity and
gender. .
Thi s equivalence, however-that race is to eth nicity as sex s to gender-c- is
becoming incrcasinglystrained. After all, sex is a far more "natural" calegory tha n
race. It has been argued that catcgories such as hermaph rod ites and transsexuals
expand th e range of natur al categories of sexes, but th ese account for a smaIl pro~
por tion of th c people of the world. There are com plex grey zones, but certainly th e
vast major ity of people still come in two basic flavors, male and female, inscribed
in thcir chro mosomes- That situation is quite different from the situation with
respect to race, which is much less pa rtible, th at is, readily divisible. The relevant
issue agaln, rhougb, is that of equality; not ofbiology.
.L.

i,
250 CHAPTER 13 ]U5 T HQW DIFFEREN T 15 DI FFEREN T?
WHAT IS I N NAT E?
Nevertheless, the ana lytc separation of the "n atural" gro up attributes fro m the
"cultur~l" one s was a major advan ce for twen tieth- cent ury anthropology. On e of
r sor"- he invented colleagues to praise his own work, and invented lots of twins as
th e majar tasks for th e twenty-first centur y is to pu t them back togcthe r inteIli-
gcnt ly, and see how th ey interdig itate with each othe r. Thus, Icr example, we may
ask how the average difference in body composition and size betwcen men and
women affects their social roles, for example, in th e division of labor.
But understanding the nature of the separation must precede putting th em
back together. And unfor tunately; there is an impo rta n convergence of int crests
th~ t ~ay Iead to overstating the role of "nature" or "biology" or "generics'' in
~h m k mg a~out why g~oups of people act as th ey do. Pirst, there is polit ical capital
m overstat mg group di fferen ces in behavior and ment ality. To th e extent th at such
differences are caused by social inequ ities, it stan ds to reaso n that social reforms
comprise the solution; thu s, overstating th e innateness ofthose dfferences erases
the n eed for soc ial refor m by denying that th e problem is real. This was the argu -
ment o~ an in~amous .1? 94 book , Th e Bell Curve, co -autho red by a psychologist
an doa right-wng political theor ist. The money "saved" by not "wasting" it on
social programa could then be red irected, for exampIe, toward war or tax cuts,
while the barriers bet ween social c1 asses widens. Second. gen eticists themselves
may per ceive thei r own interests to be served by having peopIe believe th at the
mo st important dfferences are genetic. This was certainly th e case in the 1920s,
wh~~ ~eneticists signally failed to criticize the pronouncement s of eugenics (th at
stenhzmg the poor and restricting imrnigration into the United States were
needed on account of the bad genes of the poor). Indeed, many eugen ics enth usi-
asts were thernselves geneticists. And th ird, sadly; there are still old -fashion ed
raci st~ and sexists.who have neither a Iofty p olitical agenda, nor a know ledge of
gen ettcs, yet sustan deep prejudices abou t th e innate mequalty oflarge groups of
people .
Th is field, then, is so cont entious because it is a significant arca in which sci-
ence intersects with political acton, and con sequently, it is ha rd to know what
"scientific dsco verfes" about human behaviora l genetcs to take a face value. In
th eory, the study of identical twins separated al birth shou ld be able to tell us what
is inn ate and what is learn ed, since idcntical twins are genetlc clones. and having
been raise~ in different environm ents, their detectable differences might reason -
~bly ~e assl~ned to the ir different environrnents. In practce, however; separated
identical tWIJ1S are usually raised nearby, and by oth er relatives, or are put in care-
fuUy screened adoptive bornes, and consequentIy have very strongly correlated
environmental backgro und s as well.
A major study of identical twins separated al bmh was undert aken in th e
1930s by a British psychologist named Cyrll Burt, whc was later knighted for h s
influential work. Burt believed that intelligence was prin cipally en innate qu alty,
and claimed that over a span of decades, he got consistently identical results 0 11 the
inn ateness of intelligence as his sample of identical twins separated at birth grcw
- , I
What Is Innate? 251
Iarger. Unfortun ately, it turne d out th at Burt was something of a "nutty profes-
well. Co nsequently, in the 1980s. another major research program into identical
twins separated at brth, based in Minnesota, began to generate notoriety. This
group of psych ologistswere doing their sclence with funding from a private right-
wing foun datio n with a record for supporting eugenicists and segregalionists; and
these scientists not onJytalked frecly about the role of genetlcs, bu t also ofESP and
the psychic contact ofid entical twins. But these subjects are not taken as sertously
as scencc, so it is hard to evaluate thei r other claims pertaining to genetics, espe-
ciaUy given the political source of the financia l support.
" Since identicaI twins are the subje cts of such perva sive cultural mythologies,
it is actually rather difficult to dr aw any serious inferences abou t nature and nur -
ture from them . It is quite simply a lot easier to make assertions abou t the innate-
ness of different human qualities in different groups of people than to demonstrate
anything in the area with a reasonably high degree of rigor.
One common argument is that behavioraI "universals" must be inna te. This is
nol necessarily useful or true, howevcr, since there are few such universals, and
nearly every generalization about hu man behav ior has notable exceptio ns. If uni-
versality is a sign of innateness, is the exception a mu tant ?
More importantly, the social, econom c, andpolitical pro ccsses grouped
to gether as "globalizatio n" work to ho mogenize diverse cultures, and thus
to un iversalize behaviors and atti tudes without inscribing the m in the genes.
Does the fact that Marilyn Monroe is unive rsally recogn ized as be autfful mean
tha t she evokes an innate human respon se, or that mid -twentieth -centur y
American stan dards have diffused to the rest of the rest of the world through the
cultu ral powcr of the entertainment med ia? One way to teU would be to look at
the way in wh ich standards of beaut y vary th ro ugh time and across cultures-
and to m any, som eone who looked like Marilyn Monroe would be considered
sickly an d in need of fatteni ng up. In the oth cr direction, female movie stars
of th e 19205 com monly appear flabby to a conte mpo rary culture that values
"buff "
Th e attempt to separate "innate" from "learned" behaviors and attitudes is
another good example of a false dichotomy. For sorne of ou r most profou nd evo-
lutionary adaptation s, we have evolved to be in nalely predisposed to learn thngs.
Consder, for example, walking. Youare not born do ing it; but you actively learned
it aro und ages 2- 3. from watching those aroun d you and prac ticing it yourself. If
you had not had thos e role mode ls an d workcd al it, you would proba bly not walk
as you evolved to, as the stories of abando ned babies raised apart from human
contact scem to show.
Likewise, we evolved to speak, but we have to Iearn language. We have an
innate drive to do it, but withou t exposure and practice, we wouId not be able lo
exercise this capaci ty. And of course, thc innate drive to Iearn language docs not
result in everyon e leaning the same Ianguage , but in Iearn ing one or a few vari-
ants of Ihe many possible languages.
r,l :1
252 CHAP T ER 13 JUST HOW DJFFEREN T IS DI FFE REN n
In other words, juxtaposing the "natural" against the "culturar or the "nnate"
against the "leam ed" is a useful first appro ximatio n as a dichotomy, but doesn't
stand up very well under doser seru tiny. We need to be wary of those who over-
state what is innate, because it cornmonly is politically moti vated, and one of the
major roles of twen tieth- century anthropo logy has been to show how malleable
what superficially seem like innate differences can actua lly be.
PAT T ERNS F H UMA N GENETI C
AND BEHAVIOR AL VARIAT ION
This obviously does n ot mean that th ere is no genetic effeet on hum an behavior, or
that everybody is exactJy the same. Those would be pretty weird positions to take,
althou gh occasionalIy ascribed to ant hropology by people who don't know what
they're talk.ing about, or are trying to confuse th e issues. As we not cd aboye,
ant hropo logy is predicated on human differences; if everyon e were the same, therc
could be no study of anthropology. At issue is not whether humans d ffcr, but how
they differ-the pattern s we encounter in studying human differences rigorously.
Sirnlarly, whether th ere are genetic influences over behavior is uncontroversial; at
issue is whether genetic variations are causal in explainin g any significant features
of variation in human behavior.
. The most fundamen tal recognition is that the gross patterns of human bo-
logical variation and behavioral variation do not map well onto one anothe r. We
have already reviewed in th is chapier the patterns of biological variation in our
species: human groups blend into one anoth er ph ysically and genetically, and the
bulk of detectable genetic variation is loeated withi n any particular gro up.
Wha t about the patterns of behavoral or cognt ve variation ? Obviously
everybody doesn't have the same tho ughts or act th e same way. Let us consider
something obvous, like the mod e of dr ess. Look aro und you; everyone is dressed
differently. But are th ey reaUy so dfferent! Do you see anyone wearing a sari?, a
grass skirt? a Iolncloth t, a set of ehain mailf , a toga? In fact. if )'ou think about it
in the context of the m an)' thi ngs peop Ie have wcr n or can wear, cveryone you can
see is dressed quite hom ogeneously. Actua1ly, the mode ofd ress is a fairly good
indicato r of where (an d when ) a person is from. Tha t is because it is a marker of
ethnicity, a purely culturally constitut ed aspect of grou p identity.
Indeed, so are m ost other aspects of everyday thou ghts and acts. How we
spea k, what we consider fun ny, what we consider appro pri ate, even what we con -
slder ed ible (insects and hor ses, for example, being nutr itiaus, but not eaten by
Am ericans). How we th ink about th e world, how we interaet with others, how we
expresa respect and to who m we express It, what we con stder sacred or taboo-
these are the kinds of th ings that we have come to ca11 "culture;' and which consti-
tute the major featu res of variation in human thought and deeci. A con tempor ary
athropology dassroom might contain Americans of ver y diverse ancestries,
but their minds and actions vary only within very narrow limits, when wc thin k
about the array of behavioral and cognitiv e variation presenled by our species as a
Pattcrns ofHuman Gene tic and Behavioral va raton 253
whole. In that classrocm, a medieval Frank, pre-D ynastic Egyptian, an Olmec
from Mexico, a Khoi from Namibia, a Sherpa from Nepal, oc a Roman eenturion
would stand out very readily. One would probably not even have to call th e roll to
identify them.
If cult ural features (tha t is to say, group-leve l or ethnic differenees) compri se
th e bulk of our behavoral and ment al variation, what role does genetic variation
play? Here is a tho ught expcrim ent. If we take any of the people just mentio ned-
say, the Shcrpa-and place them in your class, it is clear that Iheir own expecta-
tons, experlences, and tho ught processes would be considerably different from
everyone else's. Now let us glve them an absurdly readily cxpre ssed genetic muta-
tion that affects their though t, and makes them be very happy and laugh a 10t. Let
us imagine furt her th at someone else in thc c1ass aIso has that "happy" mutation -
say, a white unversity student from Texas. Aside from both being happy, very little
about them would be similar. Th ey would still dress differently, eat differently.
walk differen tly, entertain themselves differentl y, and probab ly not even be able to
communicate with one ano ther. In fact, they probably wouldn't even be friend s,
since th eir "happy allele" might welllead them to laugh inappropriately in each
otber's com pany, a weU- know n source of offense!
In other words. the major features of hum an cogoitive and behavioral varia-
tion are immune to genetics. Th ere are certainly alleles that affeet aspects of moo d
and personality, but like a1lth e genetic variation we already kn ow of in our species
nearly a11 th e variation for these genes will be found in nearly a11 populations. And
the cultural manner in which hu man behavior ls structure d shows a completel y
different pattern from the man ner in which ou r gene pool is structured. Th us, th e
princip al features of human behavioral variat ion are non -gcnetic in orgn, and
serve to disfinguish one grotlp of people from anot hcr quite rcadily in man y dif-
ferent ways, all in the absence of genetic distinction. Th ese are cultural or cthn ic
differen ces. On the other hand, the principal fcature ofhuman genetic variation is
polymo rph ism , oc within- group variatio n; and the between -group variation ls
structured clinalIy, rather than permitti ng discrete distinctions to be found oc
made. It s consequently impossible f or gene ttc varat on re be a major sourcc 01
behavioral or cognit vc variation in the human spec es.
This does not deny a role for genetics upon hu man behavor, but necessarily
relegates it to explaining only the differences in thought and deed that can be
found between membcrs of th e same population -who, in the great scheme of
things, are very behaviorally homogeneous to begin with!
Thus, knowing a bit abou t the patterns of human genctlc variatio n allows us
to understand th e broad irrelevance of "human behavio ral genetlcs" to the major
features of human behavioral variation. Human behavior al genetics is ooly
equipped to dea witha small bit oft he spectru m of humao behavioral and mental
variation- the withi n-grou p variation-and even then it mu st still compete with
othcr factors, such as education, Iife experlences, and family history. lt conse-
quently has little to sal of relevance to anth ropo logy, whose focus ha s traditiona 11y
been on !he differences between groups of people.
254 CHAPTER 13 JUST HOW DIFFERENT IS DIFFERENT? Referen ces and Further Reading 255

REF ERENCES AND FURTHER READlN G Kaufman, J. and S. Hall. 2003. The slavery hypertension hypothesis: Dssemn aton and
appeal o a modern race theory. Epidemiology and Society 14:111- 126. ..
Abu EI-Haj. N. 2007. The ge ne tic renscr tp tion of ra ce. A nnual Revrew of A nthropology Koe ni g, B. A ., S. S.1. Lee, and S. Rchardson, eds. 2008. Revisiung Race in a Genomc Age.
36,283-300.
Piscataway, NJ: Rut gers Uni vers ty Press.
Barbujan, G ., A. Magagni, E. Minch, and L 1. Cavall-Sfo rza. 1997. An appor tionm ent o Kuper, A. 2003. The retum o the native. Curren: A nthropology 44:389-402. .
human DNA diversity. Proceed ngs ofthe Nationa Academy ofSc ences, U SA 94:4516- Lewontn , R. C. 1972. The apport lonment of huma n diversity. E~olutionary BlOlogy 6:
4519.
381-398.
Barkan, E. A. 1993. Tbe Retreat of Scientific Racsm . Ncw York: Cambridge Unversity Press. Lttle, M. and K. A. R. Kennedy, eds. 2010. Histories 01Ame rican Physical Anth ropology n
Baum , B. 2006. Th e Rise and Fall ofth e Caucasian Race: A Political History ofRacia Identity. the Twentieth Cent ury. Lanham , MD: Lexi ngto n Books.
New York.: NYU Press. Lvingstone, E B. 1962. On the non-exsten ce o hu man ra ces. Curren: Anlhropology 3:
Ber r eby, D. 2006. Us and Them . New York: Littl e, Brown.
279-281.
Boas , F. 1912. C hanges in th e bodily fo rm o descendants o Im mgra nts . American A ntbro- Marks, J. 1995. Hum an Biodiversity: Genes, Race, and History . New York: Aldne de G~~er.
p ologist 14:530-562. Mead. M. 1935. Sex and Temperament in Three Primit ve Socetes. New York: w lllam
Bogln , B. 1988. Rural-to -urba n m igr at on . In Biologicaf Aspeets of Hum an Migration, ed.
Morrow.
C. G . N. Mascie-TayJor and G. W. Laske r, 90-129. New York: Cambridge University Mon ta g u, A. 1997. Man'sMost Dangerous Myth: The Fal1acy of Roce. 6th ed. Plca san t Ve w,
Press. CA : AltaMira Press
Boyd, W C. 1963. Genetics and the hum an race. Science 140:1057- 1065. Pa nter , N . I. 2010. The History ofWh ite People. New York: W. W Norton.
Bra ce, C. L. 1982. Th e roots of the race concept in American physical anthropology. In A Shapro, H. L. 1939. M igration and Environmen t. New York: Oxford Unversry.Press. .
listory of A merican Physical A nth ropology. 1930-1 980, cd. F.Spencer. Ne w York: Aca - Shapiro, H. L. 1944. Anthropology's contribution to inter radal un derstandn g. Science
demic Press.
99,373- 376. .
Cartmill. M. 1998. The stat us of the race conccpt in physical anthropology. A m erican Smedley, A., and B. D. Smedley. 2005. Race as biology is ~ction, racism as a social problem
Anthropologist 100:651-660.
is real. Am erican Psychologist 60:16-26. . .
Coma s, J. 1961. "Sclentflc" racism again? Current A nth ropology 2:303-340. Smedley, A. 1999. "Race" and the construction o human dentiry. A merican Anh ropotogist
Fish, J., cd. 2002. Race and Intelligence: Separating Sctencef rom My th . Rahway, NJ: Lawrence
100,690-702.
Erlbaum . Tshkoff S. and K. lGdd. 2004. Implications o biogeography o hu man populations for
Gannett, 1. 2004. The biological reflcation of cace. British lournal f or the Ph osophy of "race" and "medicine." Natu re Genecs 36(11):521- S27.
Science 55:323-345. Tucker, W H. 2002. The Pund ing ofScientific Racism: WicklifJe Draper and the Poneer Pund.
Gould, S. J. 1981. Th e Mismeasure of M an. New York: W. W. Norton. Urbana: University of lllnos Press.
Greene, J. C. 1954. Sume early speculations on the origin ofhuman races. A m erican An thra Washburn , S. L. 1963. Tbe stud y of race. A m erican An thropologist 65:52 1-531.
pologist 56:31- 4 1.
Haller, J. S., Ir, 1971. Race and the concept of progress in nneteenth century Am erican
ethnology. American Anth ropologist 73:7 10- 724.
Hannaford. I. 1996. Race: The History of an Idea in the West. Balt more, MD: Iohns Hopkins.
Harrls, M. 1970. Referential ambguiry in the calculus of Brazilian racial identity. Sout hwest-
em Iournal ofAnthropology 26(1):1- 14.
Harrl son, F. V. 1995. The perslstent power of 'race' in the cultural and political econom y of
racismoA nnual Review o/A nthropology 24:47- 74.
Herskovits, M. J. 1924. whar is a race? The American Mercury 2:207-21 0.
Hooton, E. A. 1926. Metho ds o racial enalysls. Science 63:75- 81.
Hudson, N. 1996. From 'nalion' to 'race': The or igin of racial d assification in eighteenth-
centur y thought. Eighteenth-century Studies 29:247- 261.
I1ulse, F. S. 1962. Race as an evolutjon ary episode. American An thropologist 64:929- 945.
Ignatiev, N. 1996. How the lr ish Became W hite. Ncw Yor k: Routledge.
Jablonski, N . and G. Chaplin. 2000. The evolution of hum an skin coloration. ou m al of
Human Evolution 39:57- 106.
rackson, F. L. C. 1993. Evolution ary and political economic influences on bioJogical diver-
sity in African Americans. ournal ofBlack Stu dies 23:529- 560.
Tackson. J. P., Jr. 2005. Sciencef or Segregation. Ne...... York: NYU Prcss.
 '"
,
I
I
CHAPTER 1 4
I1
r peop Ie-at least 70% of th e people in the world. Par frorn being a "disease," lactose
1 everybo dy except Europeans and other people with a history of cattle herdn g.Hke
Nature/Culture, or How Science
Manages to Give Little Answers to Big
Questions (On the Non- reductive
Core of Anthropology)
T H EME
Humans are uni quely biocultura l animals. Everyt hi ng we do is rendered m eaning-
fui within a con textualizing envi ronment of econo my, social relations, and ideas.
Tha t cnviron m ent changes rapidly, and not only do we change to fit it, but th e prac-
tice of scenc e. an d espe cially ofbiological an throp ology; changes with it as well.
ADAPTAB ILlTY AND THE H UMA N CO NDI TI ON
The hallmark of the hu m an condit ion is not so m uch OUT particular adap tat ions,
bu t the extent to which OUT intelligence an d lon g periods of growth and irnm atu-
rity allow us to be adaptab le. Natural selection mol ds the gene pool of spec es lo
co nfo rm to th e stresses of the environ ment; but the adaptations wro ught by natu-
ral selection are long term and largely irr eversible. That is what we gene rally mea n
by "adaptation" in an evolutiona ry sense.
Hu m an po pulations have adap ted in th is evolutio nary sen se most1y in farly
subtle ways. The least subtl c is of cou rse the depigm entation of human skin in
nontropicallatitudes, allowin g ultr avioIet light to stimulate the production of vita-
m in D (chapter 13). But thosc examples seem to be q uite ra re. We find geograph i-
cal re gularities in body build across mammalian speces, and th ese seem to hold as
wcll for human po pulatons. Short, stocky bodies retain hcat m ore efficiently than
lean , lanky bodies, and consequent ly you rend to fin d lean anim als in thc trop cs
and fat o ne s in the ar etic. InterestingIy, th is genera lization (known as Bergm ann's
Rule) also seems to hold fo r human populatlons, at least eru de1y, in the extremes.
One fin ds lean.Ianky people in East frica, and short, stocky people in Grcenla nd.
(O bviou sly oth er facto rs are also al work, since officially th e tallest populat ion
today is the Duteh .) Sirnila rly, Allen's Rule relates lim b length to d ima te among
vertebrares, with cold-adap ted species hav ing sho rter Iimb s: and again we tend lo
find the longcst-lim bed pcoples in hot area s, and the shortest-limbed peoples in
the cold est areas.
256
Adaptability and the Hu man Condition 257
Another well-known, but subt le, gcn etc adaptation is lactos e toleran ce,
the ability to digest milk beyond ch ildhood. Th is ability do es not exist in mo st
into lerance is polymorphic everyw here , and s the majority con dit ion among
sorn e East Africans. The mutation permits peo ple to metabolize lactose, th e sugar
in. milk, and thus to derive sust enance from a food tha t wou ld ot herwise gvc th em
gas and diarrhea. Thl s m ut ation, th en , seems to be an adaptation to th e availability
of a source of nutrition-milk-that ordin arily requires fermentation int o cheese
or yogurt to be digesti ble.
And even more subtlc are the adaptation s of the human gene pool to the envi-
ronme ntal pressure of infeetiou s disease. Th e gene po ols of pe opIes in mal arial
environme nts have developed e1evated pro port ion s of certain alleles that afford
sorne mea sure of protec tion fro m that deb ilitating di sease (chapter 5). Ot her dis -
eases have been suggested as pressures (sueh as chol era , bubonic plague, and
tuberculosis), having corresponding effects 00 th e gene poo ls of cer tain popula -
tion s, but with far less convincin g evidence. Presumably th e ravages of histor ical
pandemics,like the bubonic plague in Europ e from 1348 to 1350, have an effect on
the gene poo l at least in the genes govern ing imm une resp on ses or assist ing in
disea se resistance, but th e specifics are unknown; .or even whether othe r alleles
may have been "carr ied along" und er th e in ten se selection for disease resistance. It
is certainly not terribly difficult , however, to imagin e the rnutations that may con fer
resistance to HI V infection having a subtle effect on the human gene pool over the
ncxt several gene rations.
The diverse oth er ways in which humans com e to respo nd to environmental
pressures, and form a "fit" with their surroun dings, comprise the study of adaptabil-
ity. After all, th ere is also gene tic contro l of physiology, as frst explored in dep th by
the biologist C. H. Wadd ington (chapter 6). Hum an bod ies are chara cterized by
developm ental plasticity, that is, they are sens itive to the conditions ofgrowth, so th e
adult fonn of the body can be affected by lon g-term stresses quite strikingl y and
reguJarly, without being directly a consequence of the gene tic prog ramo In this sense,
the bod y is adaptng to an environm ental stress, but it is not doing so through the
gene pool in geological time, but rather, over th c course of a single lifetim e by virtue
of the body's reactive propert ies. While th ese physical m odifk ation s are not passed
on Ps" se, the pe rsistence of the stressor acro ss gene rations causes the bodles of
ancestors and descendants to develop in a con sistent and sim ilar fashion.
In this catcgo ry we can place the changes in hea d forro and bod y that occur as
a result of irnm igration , descr ibed in the last ch apter. A m ajar env iron m ental
st ressor is hyp oxia, o r reduced ar : peop!e who live at hgh altitu des, or whose
mot hers smoked heavily while pregn ant, com monly have "srunted gro wth"- their
bodies have physiologically adapted to the lower oxygcn levels and have alter ed
their growt h trajec tories accordingly.
These phy siological adaptatons are nongenetc, since they are direct responses
to specific environmental pressures. But the y are also pen n an ent; onc e the bone s
258 C HA PT ER 14 NATU RE/CU LTU RE
gro w in a cert ain way. ove r a certain period of time. th ey are stuck wit h th at form
withi n very narrow limi ts. Thus, the practice of cradlc-board ng (tyng the infa nt's
he ad to a cradle with a flat surface) result s in a very flat rear of th e head. Th is is
such a regular feature of sorne populatons, that it had on ce bccn classfled as a
racia l typc -the "Dinaric" skull formoBut it is due simply to a cultural pr actice.
Similarly. the bin din g of women's feet by tr aditional Chine se society, or the
lifetim e of repeti tive m olion by wom en grinding grain in agricultural societies,
affect th e skeleton in very cha racteristic ways.
In addition to adapting genetically an d develop m entally, hum ans adapt facul -
tatively to short-ter m stresses. T he se adaptive physiological responses are gener-
ally reversible. such as tannlng, callousing, or incre asing the blo od tlow to cold
parts of th e body. Athl etes prepa ri ng for cornpetition al high altitu des will com -
monly train at high altitudes for precisely th at reason, to acclimate thei r bod ies to
the new stressor. These short term physiological responses are ano ther aspec t of
the adap tabiliry of th e human condition .
A thrd kin d of nongen etic adap tati on , also widely sha red with other anim al
specles. is behavioral ad aptation. Many animals-espe cially m ammals-learn
what lo eat , ho w to hunt , ho w to h ide from predators. how to aet aro und other
m em bers of th eir socia l group, and even how to use to ols to accomplish specific
tasks. The key elem ent here is the tra nsmission of in for m atio n. (Ethologists som e-
times refer to this as "cultur al." but that reflects a different use of th e term than in
anth rop ology.)
Obvi ously humans also Iearn things, and use objects lo heIp them survive. But
in hum an s, as noted in th e last chapter, th ese objee ts take on an evolutio nary tra -
jeetory of th eir OWI1 . They comprise an extrasomatic (extern al to the body) adap-
tafion and superorgan c mo de o evolu tion. There is eerta inly nothing mystical
about this: after all, you use things, but how many of tho se th ings have you aetually
ma dc you rself? Mostly the y wer e m ad e by others, indep endentl y of your organic
existence , and quite possibly before you werc even bo rn . Yo u read Englsh . bu t yo u
didn't nvent it; English was there befare you, and you essential1y were bo rn into it;
and it wilJ be there whe n you die, altho ugh very sligh tly chan ged .
To the extent that peopIe nvent ncw things or coin n ew words, those are
minor per turbations, rou ghly an alogous to mutations; cultures change th ro ugh
the large-scale soc ial pro cess of adoptic n, whic h is ofien d ifficult to pred ict. Cellu-
lar phon es and the Intern et , no w im possible to imagine be ing witho ut, wcrc almost
ncon ceivable a generat ion ago; so was en alliance with Russia in a glo bal and
dom estic wa r against an enemy called tcr rortsm .
Th e poin t is that human culture is not me rely a resp on se to environment al
pro ble ms, but eom prises a complex cnvro nme nt in and ofitself, which necessan ly
enta ils its own set of respo nses. And thos e responses come partly from you as an
individu al-Iearning ho w to aet app ro priately in yo ur own tim e and place-but
also frorn us as a social collectivity. I have "written" thi s boo k, for exam ple, only in
th e ve.ry narrow sen se of having composed It; but 1 di d n't chop down the trees,
mak e th e pulpopr ess and cut the pa per, bleo d th e ink. cast and set th e type. prio t
FoIk Theories of Heredry 259
t, an d bind it! Clearly, eve n the mo st basic thi ngs we tak e for granted are forrned
and exist within a com plex network of economic, political, and social forces an d
are well beyond the capabilltes of any individual persono
Thi s is wha t anthropologists m ean by cultur e. It is not the learn ed beh aviors
th emselv es, but th e invisible matrix of social relati ons, m ean ings, tech nologies,
an d histo ries within which those be hav iors are embedded, as well as the ir visible
prod ucts. That is th e difference between a bea ver dam and Ho over Dam: and it is
presentl y the m ost powerful force in our own ad aptat io n and survtval, without
precedent in the histor y of life.
FOLK T HE RIES F H ER EDl T Y
AH cultures have id eas abo ut why peopIe ar e dlfferen t, how th ose differenees are
pa tte rned and Inherited , where famil y resembl ance s come from, an d what it all
mean s, or how to struct ure on e's life aceording to one's beliefs and prac tices. Thi s
extends to the cultur es of science in which it is not uncommon to eneounter the-
ories ofhurnan behavior th at fail to ackno wled ge human ad apt ability-c-nongen cti c
adaptations- as th e hallm ark of our specics, and that assume th at natur al selectio n
has been busily crafiing aspects of our gene pool govern ing eve rything from walk-
ing to rapin g!
At the dawn of modero anthro pological fieldwork , th e social anthropol og ist
Bronislaw Malino wski found that the Trob riand Islanders, near New Gui ne a,
am ong whom he Hved durng Wo rld War 1, di dn't aeknowledge a relati on ship
between sex and pro creation . The Trohriand Island ers aIso were matrilin eal, tr ae-
ing family relationships ju st through rhe mother's side-which the den ial of bio-
logical patern ity served to reinforce. Their th eory held spiri ts of th e driftwood as
respo nsible for pregnan cy, and th e proximity of th e husba nd as responsible for
famil y resembl ance. Whil e wrong. their the ory was logica l an d reasonable, glven
their beliefs.
In premode rn Europ c, it was widely held tha t if a woma n had sex outsde of
wedlock, th e impr int ofher lover cou Id be retai ned in he r womb , so that whe n she
later ma rr ied, her child re n would resemble her for mer lover rather th an he r hus-
ban doThis idea. know n as telegony; rein fo rced popular beliefs about the imp o r-
lance of female chastity; alt ho ugh it is wron g. (Sorne animals- for example, fru it
flies-are able to rctain sperm, so the first co nsort may in deed be thc father of eggs
lad after subsequc nt matin gs: But no t us.)
Th e inheritance of acqui red characteristics (chapte r 2) ha s pe rennially been
revived by scholars with a Marxist political be nt, since i~ seems to be comp atible
with the goal of progressive social improvcm ent, at th e core of Marxism (and
many othe r humanitarian social philosop hies). This is counterbalan ced by th e
overemphasis on innate in equalities by th e euge nicists and later gene tie en thusi-
asts. Th e point is that th ere are popu lar ideas about heredity tha t m ay sound sci-
en tific, but are bas ed not so much on m oder a scientific kn owledge as on cult ural
ideologies. As su eh, they ma y be difficult to ident ify, because.like the preju dices of
 260 C HA P TER 14 NATU RE/CU LTU R E
th e 1920s' eugenicsts, the cultur al ideas may be encrypted into the science itself
an d then read back out.
We can ide ntify th ree m ajor sets of con temporary cultural prej udi ces, o r folk
ideologies, of he redi ty. Al! are po pularly thought of as scientific in sorne circles,
but act ually represent the gray zone where science and cu lture mingle. T hey are
empiricalIy false, o r at least on ly true in a peculiarly narrow sense, yet ar e im por-
tan t to biolo gical anthropology as illustrations both of the intersection of th c bio-
logical and the anthr opolog ical realm s and also of the inh eren t di fficulties in
understan d ing the h uman condition scien tiflcally, when the subjec t is so highl y
value laden .
The first folk ideology of heredity is Taxonomism, the idea th at the h um an
species is naturally divisible int o a srnall numher of relatively d iscrete groups,
equivalent to zoolog cal su bspecies. We sho wed in chapter 13 ho w thi s s em piri-
cally not so. Making groups and assign ing people to them Is a fund amental part of
human so cial life, but hu m an biological varia tion is clina l, an d the gro ups we m ake
are bioc ultural. That is why the catego ries of Latino, jew, Italian, o r Natve Ameri-
can are important both as identities, an d as cu ltural and social groups. They are
groups of po litical salience and personal meanin g, but not biologicalIy dem ar cated
or define d. Likewi se for the category "Black," th e color s a rnetap horicallabel, bu t
there Is no biological cohe re nce to gro up it embraces-in America, it can refer to
anyon e with any ancesto rs at all fro m Af rica. Taxonomism ent ails a theor y abou t
the structu re cf th e human gen e pool; an d to th at extent , it is empir ically false, an d
reco gn izably anothe r m anifest ation of the process of "na turalzing difference"
(chapter 13).
The groups themselvcs, of co urse, are no less real for nor being natural su b-
speces: and that is anothcr testament to the cult ural nature of h uman life. In so rne
cases, the cultur al history of th e gro up s has placed them at highcr r isk for so rne
health problems. For example, African American ma les are at hi ghe r risk for hig h
blo o d press ure and its cardiovasc ula r consequences. And yet, on c does no t see the
same patte rn among Africa na: it appears to be a bological consequ cn ce of growing
u p black in Ameri ca, rather th an a direet ph en otypic consequence of the African
gen e poo l.
Othe r cult ural issues m ay ha ve gene tic consequences. Millenni a of en d uring
per iodic bou ts of pe rsecut ion and genoeide have left Ashkenazi (Eastern Euro-
pean) Iews with elevated proporto ns of othe rwise rare alleles, in d ud ing those tha t
are implicated in breast cncer and neurological d isease, su ch as Tay-Sachs, Gau-
cher's, an d familial dysaut on om ia. W hile ot her microevolu tion ary factor s m ay be
at wor k, the gene tic hom ogeneity of the Tay-Saehs geno type (abou t 75- 80% of
detectab le allelcs are cop ies of exactly the sam e one) sug gests a m aja r role for the
foun der effeet, a presum able gcnctic consequence of th e h istor y of persecution .
Th e second maj or categor y of folk hered ity is racism , th e idea th at a person is
an embodiment of gro up attribu tes, wh ich are ofte n th em selves ima ginar y. If th e
gr oup is co nside red to be a race, then this bec omes raci sm in Its m ost familiar
form; otherwise it shades into other knds of gro up-levcl an imosites (such as
Th e State of th e Species 261
I
t
ant-Sem tism , scxlsm, or homop hobia), based on the nature of th e perceived
identiti es. Th is is also a folk theory of heredity, not on ly bec ause of th e common
assumption ofthe nrateness of th ese group attributes, but also because th ere is n o
i opportunity for an ind ividual to escape the groups sgma, regardl ess of actual
anc estry o r gene tic constitutio n. These perceived group- level attributes tend to be
un dilu ted by in termarriage, and yet not are inh er ited probabilstcally, like gene s.
(A good example of ths s the be lef that black athletes are naturalIy end owed wit h
ba sketb all sk ill, yet in depend ently of the comp lex ion or actual ances try of the par-
ticular at hletes, much less of th eir life expe rienees an d self-expectations.) T hese
are cult ural processes , with aspects th at mi mic gene tics, but are quite di stinct fro m
biolo gical properties and proeesses.
T he fina l catego-y of folk taxonomy is Gen etic Essentialism , the red uctive
co nstruct io n of idcntities on th e bas is ofbroad key features pre sumed to be inn at e.
Here, however, the iden tities are no t gro up-level, or popul aton-sp eciflc, iden tities.
In stead, the pseudogenet c categories are applied to within-populat ion varia t ion ,
most oft en to nebulously defined features with com plex etologtes. such as inte lli-
gence, aggression, sexual orentatio n, n ovelty seekng, alcoholism , or deprcssion .
Th e truth value of the se claims is gcne rally quite low, in par t bec ause the y see m
so commonsens ical that they are easier to aceep t un criti cally (for a brief time, at
least). But these are precisely the kinds of clams-c-th e on es th at reinforce what we
alrea dy th ink we kn ow- that must be su bjected to the high est degree of scrut iny.
And un fortunately many are never rep llcated, and even the m ost well-su pported
claims account for only a tiny frac tion of th e behaviors. Th e infam ous "gay gene" on
the X chromosom e, which was th e subjeet of cover sto ries in m ajor m agazines and
newspapers in the early 1990s, was o nly suggested to explain about 5% of hom osex-
uality, and then only in roen ; bu t in any event, we can see that it doe s not actually
seem to exst, now that th e Human Geno me Project is com plete. Ncedless to say,
th is enterpr ise carries strong po litical im plicatio ns for "natu ra lizing d ifference"
Even worse, thi s kind of work is ofte n prom oted by groups with an expli citly
anti-egalitari an agenda, on th e (ncorrect ) belief th at evid ence for gen etic dffer-
ences in behavior within grou ps counts as solid evidenc e for genet ic dfferen ces
in behavior between groups. But it should be fairly obvio us that th e differences in
gen etic endowm ents th at m ay underlie sorne chi ld ren's d ivergent performances
in the same classroo ra can not be reliably invoked to exp lain th e gross difference in
pe rfor m an ce betwccn students in a suburban prep school an d th ose in an under-
staffed and overcrowded slum school. Likewise, the differen ccs that m ay lead on e
fra t guy to d rink too much too often, and another no t to, probably have little to do
with exp laining th e dfference in dr inking patterns between Navajos and Mormons.
TH E STATE F TH E SPECIES
Modero Horno sapiess is a cultural creature in ways that are so fun da mental an d
pervasve as to be almost too obvious to see. Human demograph y, for exam ple, is
far less species specific than it is for other prim ates. Agricultural societies, for
 262 C H A PT ER 14 NATU RE/ CU LTU RE
example, tend to have hi gh growt h rates, and a highe r prop or tion of child ren tha n
erhcr hunting-and-gath ering peoples or ind ustrialized pe oples. In oth er words,
featu res th at are biological in ot her species are predicated on one's economic sys-
tem in humans.
Sgncantly, th en , we cannot talk abo ut "natural" human demography, for
I
human demograp hy does no t exist ou tside th e context of an economic system.
This problem can be scen in reverse as well. whar could be m ore "natural" th an
m enstru ation ? Once a mo nth , when fertilizatiun has not occurred, hormones begin
to rage, and th e endometrial lining of the uterus s shed. along with sorne blood :
inco nvenien t, perh aps; irritat ing, perhaps-but natural. And yet, women in indu s-
trialized society reach sexual m atu rity earlier and menopause later; have fewer chil-
d ren, spaced more closely together, and they gene rally do not brcast-feed on
demand-com pared to wom en in oth er times an d pIaces. If you do the math (and
know that breast- feedlng on demand stimulates the production of a ho rm on e that
inhibits ovula tion ), you discover that mode rn wo men are having 5- 10 times more
men strual periods than any women have ever hadoHow "na tura l" do es it look th en?
It is a further testimony lo the adaptability of the human body, yet also m akes
us app reciate th e environme ntal uniqueness provi ded by conte mpo rary cult ure.
Som etimes this appreciation is m ass marketed as a "la ck of fit" be tween "wh at we
cvolved for" and "the mod ern condition" Thi s is misleading, however, for two
rcasons: (1) th e human con dit ion is generalIy charactertzed by extreme adaptabil -
ity, not by pan icular adaptation-humans hav e a rem arkable ability to make
the mselves "fit"; and (2) to the extent that Pleistocen e envi ronm ents are what our
ance stors evolved in, those environments were q uite heterogeneous in space and
tim e. an d th us the hypothetic al enviro nment that we evolved for is simply an
abst raction, another elusive Platonic essence.
Obvious ly we evolved in an environmen tal context that lacked sanit ation,
ant ibotlcs, stressfu l jobs, and Big Macs. The flrst two con tribute to cxtending the
life spa n, so that we no lo nger die of th e nfect on s an d con tagions th at threatened
our ancestors. The latter two (st ress and high -far foo ds) contrib ute to th e heart
disease thar (aIong with cancers) are majar cau ses of death in modern society, at
ages that our ance stors rarely ma de It to.
Does that m ean it is "un nat ur al" to be fifty YC;H S old?: Probably noto Rath er, it
means th at a high ly ada ptab le organism , faced with new circumstanc cs and stim -
uli, develops an d reacts in co ncert with its cultural surro und ngs. If those sur-
roundings produce a larger proportion of e1derly individuals, th en th at is simply
part of th e human condition. The real issues are not abo ut evolution, no r even
about cxten ding the human Iife span. Th e issues ar e enti rely cultural: How to nte-
grate a gro wing pro por tion of elderly into a society tha t alienates those it already
has! What, after all, is th e po int of living to 120 in a society tha t doesn't care ad e-
quatel y for ts eighry-year -olds!
Like other problems of human adap tation, thi s one is caused by cu ltural fac-
tors, and will req uire a cultural soIution. The biology of aging is a relatively trivial
issue in com pariso n.
The Anthropologyo Science 263
Wc see sim ilar patterns in ma ny ostcns ibly blologcal features. The process
of indu stri alizat ion o r m odernization, which entails technological changes, eco-
nomic chan ges, dietary changes, and lifestyle changes, carries biological con sc-
quences to the popuhtion. For example, children mature earlier, and grow to
larger body sizes. Th is phenomenon ha s been found in diverse populations, and is
no t gene tic in etolog j; We call th ese "secular trends," an d on ce again they testify
lo hu m an adap tability.
Th ey have Iittlc to say abou t hum an "adaptaton," ho wever. To the extent that
there is a lack of fit that m ay be disce rnible, it wou ld seem lo be between th e socia l
system th at identifies people as socially adult onl y at age 18 or 21, whe n they have
been physieaIly adul t for po ssibly the latt er third of their lives. Once again, "nature"
is not at fault, and s only very passively involved in the prob lem ; culture is both
t he cause of the problem an d th e sour ce of the solut ion.
And it ne ed har dly be note d tha t trying to tell teenagers that sexuality is bad
and shou ld be avoided is a vain endeavor; not so much because of the neurobo l-
ogy that makes it feel good, but becau se of th e hypo cri sy of the m essage when
everyone else is so obvious ly enjoying sexoOnce again, the pro bIem and the solu -
tion are cu ltural; biology is a largely passive player in the dr am a.
TH E AN THROPO LOGY OF SCIENCE
Other animals eat: we dine . Other anim als breathe; we snort with der ision, we
smoke. Other an imals look an d see: we adapt transparent materials to allow us to
gaze in admi ration , and to read. Other an ima ls get wet; we construct shelters.
We hum ans have evolved away from the brachi ating apes, an d into a new
ecological niche with out precedent in the his to ry of life. T hat niche was initialI y
one tha t simply involved m an ipul ating and modifying nat ura l objects to serv e
useful en ds, som ethmg do ne by roany anima l species to a limi ted exte nt, mo st
notabl y prim ates. Q UI lineage, however, developed a co evolut ionary relationship
with th ose mo dified natural o bjecls. As they he lped o ur ances tors to survive and
reprodu ce, our an cestor s in tu rn develo ped the capability- both man ual and
mental-of ma king eren flner, more efficient, and more dive rse tooIs. With the
emergen ce of an atom ically m odcrn Horno sapien s- forehead, chin, and all-c-the
tools took on an evolutiona ry trajecto ry of the ir own . Ultimately, th e products of
hu man invention have come to create th eir own environ m enl lo which hu ma ns in
tu rn adapto
Of cou rse th e produ ct s of hu man invention extend beyond sim ply tools, lo
th e social and ideologieal spheres-the interpe rson al in ter actions and the sen sc
we m ake of the wo rld. Cu lture constitu tes an environment int o whic h we are born ,
an d consequently to which we mus t accom modate ours elves in ordc r to survive.fn
the na rro west sense, culture dictates the kinds of ways in which we can ear n a liv-
ing, thus permitting us with th e biological basics of cxistence. Culture dictau-s
th e app ropriate behaviors to particular peoplc, whi ch facilitates both toleratio n
and coo pera tion. More broadl y, cultu re gives us Iden tities as m embe rs of nati ons,
!
264 CHA PT ER 14 NATURE/CULTURE
relgons, or ethn icities, which m ay also have a profoun d effect on ou r survival, in
addition to governing the m inutiae of ou r daily lives.
In more subtle ways, however, culture gives us a coheren t view of the world,
wh ich gives meaning to our lives and satisfies the inte llectual curios ity we all have,
as a byproduct of the large bra ins we evolved. And yet the particulars of th at coher-
ent view va ry from place to place an d from time to time , tha t is to say, "culturally"
Co ntemporary sclence pro vide s one set of such views, form ulated according to th e
basic guide lines disc usse d in cha pter 1, and can consequently be readily charac ter-
ized as unstable (by vir tue of ts "selfc orrectng" nature) an d spiritua lly unreward -
ing (by virtue of its m aterlali sm or naturalism, which deliberately shelds it from
"sprttualty" ).
On the othe r side of the ledger is th e fact that science provides the mos t accu-
rat e and empirically valid se t of id eas about the universe.
Th e fact that scie nce has shown itself to explan the uni ver se wcll and to apply
tha t kn owledge for useful ends m ean s th at scientific explanations have earne d a
reputation of autho riry; at least in our cu lture. One consequc nc e of hav ing earned
such authority is tha t it may be invokcd inappropriate ly. to make a political view
sound mo re rhetor icaHy convincing. This rheto ric may b e obvous or subtle. The
late nine teenth -century elitist movement known as Social Darwinism {chapter 3)
fizzled o ut beca use itsa nti-u n ion , ant iwelfare serm ons we re so transparently a sclf-
rationalization for th e greedy excesses of th e pr ivileged classes.
On the oth er ha nd, during th e eugen cs movement, th e scientists them selves
held the popular ra cist and classist views th at suppo rted Congressionally restrict-
in g the irnmigration of Italian s and Iews, on account of th eir "bad germ -plasm"
(1924). and judicially permtting states to sterilize their citizen s involuntarily, also
on account of th eir "ba d germ-plasm"(l92 7). Here th e biologi sts themselves were
the vang ua rds of thc mass p olitical action , and hardly qu estioned or noticed the
vulgar cultural prejud iccs that were actually motivating th em .
As a result largcly uf the cugencs movement, an d particularl y as it found de-
ological compatibility and expression in th e Nazi movem ent in Germany in the
19305, science afte r World War 11 carne un der int en se scrutiny by the pubhc, and
ide as uf scie ntific respo nsibility and bioethics were develop ed . Prio r to World War
11. it was tacitly assu me d th at th e progress of scen tific kn owledge, the m arch of
scie nce, was inexorable ami th at no thing should be allowed to impede it. But the
Naz is, whc were advancing science through torturing peop le, showed th at indeed
something sho uld be allowe d to impede it. W hen science comes int o conflict with
hum an rlghts, human rghts wins. -'
In fact, th e problem did no t end with the Nazis, cithcr. Th c eugcnicists in
Ame rica wer e intellectu al kin of the eugen icists in Ge rm any. An d th e infam ous
Tuskegee experimen ts showed that a conce rn for hum an righ ts in American bio-
m edica l practice need ed to be articulatcd and formalized as well, (oc a lack of
concern for tho se n ghts did not end al the boundaries o Gerrn an y. Ame rican
scien tists were cu rious about th e ult ima te progress of syphi lis, whic h damaged
many physio logical systems as its course pro grcssed through th c body, until the
Bioethics 265
victim was eithe r treated, or died. As doctors, if someone carne to th em with syph-
lts, they had to treat them . But th at prec1uded the study ofthe ultimate destructive
effects of syphilis. So they arranged to study poor black men in Alabama with
syphls, bu t not to treat them . They satisfied the lette r of the Hippocratic oalh-
"flrst, do no ha rm"- afler all, they ha d no t infected the victims, but were merely
monitoring th em. The subjects were physically no worse off for having par tici-
pated. On the othe r hand, the do ctors were dehumanzing their subjects by regard -
ing them as not worthy of treatmen t: thc y were relating to th ese me n as if they
were mere things, or animal s. Dldn't they have spouses and childre n? And these
experiments were carried out from 1932 to 1972 in America.
We now commonly refer to the study of the cultural prac tices of science as
"the an th ropo logy of scie nce." Like more traditional areas of ant hro pology. this
often subsumes eth nograp hic wo rk (ob ser ving and int erviewing scien tists ), ana -
Iytical work (understandng how sorne interesting ideas und ergo a transform atio n
into aceep ted facts), end arc hival work (slu dying histor ical do cuments). In this
vew, science is neith er good nor bad , but both simultaneously, and m ore impo r-
tant ly, Is a un q uc an d pecu liar set of thou ghts and acts, or discursive prac tices.
Science s dea rly he re to stay, an d has the power to enrich our lives
im m en sely. But like any form of soc ial power, Itcan readily be co -opted. Part of
the anthropology of science st rives to can attent ion lo the po litical implications
of sce nce, the financia! co nflic ts of inter est and ideological convergences of
int ere st, and the no n-nc rm ative behavior of scie ntists - those actio ns that go
against wh at scientists are su pp ose d o r commonly expected to do. Bologcal
anthropolo gy, which essume d th e rol e of an auth oritativc scie ntific volee on race
and human or igin s in th e twen tiet h century, is situa tcd right at th e co nver gence
of science an d politi cs.
BIO ETH ICS
The field of bioethic s arosc as a gui de to the pra ctice of hu m an sciences in th e
wake of wor ld War 11. The Nurem berg Co de was formalizcd in 1947 (an d subse -
q ucntly revised, m ost significantly in the 1979 "Belmom report"] to set intern a -
tlona l standards for the stud y of human beings in scicntific research . One of the
principal ideas in ethical rescarch to day is that the researcher has the responsibil-
ity to obtain the "voluntary informed consent" of any partic ipant in a scientific
study. A part icipan t cannot be coe rce d in any way, and the cooperation must be
secured th rough an ore n and ho nest explanation of the plusse s and m inuses of
pa rt icipating. And securing this conse nt ho nes tly, in a non- coersive manner, Is the
rcsp ons ibility of th e scientist.
Of cour se, th s all presum es that there is a fundam ental concorda nce between
the scientist and th e subject- that th ey speak th e same langua ge, hold the same
basic values , and sha re basic ideas about how th e wor ld works and abo ut science .
But wha t about people peripheral to the sph er e of con tcmp orary European and
Am erican cultur al values?
 266 CHA P TER 14 N ATU R Ef C UL T URE
In oth er words, how do you do ethically acceptable work with people, having
received theirvoluntary inforrned conse nt, who do not share your ideas abou t life,
Ir
death , h ealth , the bod y, and sden ce? Thi s ind eed was the problem faced by the
orga nizers oft he Huma n Genome Diversity Project in the m d- tssos (chapter 5).
While we tcnd to thi nk of blood as a replenlshable, f sometimes messy; resou rce,
mcst peoplcs believe t to be a highly sacred substance, fuIl of spiritual power. That
is, after all, the basic belief of the Christian Eucharist.
If bIood is a magical substance- charged with th e cosmic forces behin d blood
brotherhood and menstrual taboos-then you are going to have to give peop le a
pretty good reason to part with theirs. In the 1950s, you could gve poor peop le
five bucks, or sick people a shot of penicillin, in cxchange for their blood. But that
won't work tod ay- for an exploitat ive econ omi c or med ical relatio nship is (quite
reason ably) considere d coercive. Nowadays, the burden falls upon you, the scien-
tist, to be honest abo ut what you want, why you want t, what you're goin g to do
with it, and to explain it aHto peopIe in terms they can un derstand, so th at th ey are
in a positio n to gve their fully infor med consent.
In the case of the Hum an Genom e Divcrsity Project, they were trying to coor-
dinate on a grand scale what anthropologists had been doing 00 a small scale for
decad es. But the pu blicity they were generating cast a brigh t light on practices that
had been flying beneath the bioethic al rad ar. Thus, for example, once the scientist
had gotten the native to agree to give blood , th e bIood trad itionaUy becarnc
the property of the researcher, who might do many other kind s of stud ies than the
one s that the n atives in itialIy were rold about when they agreed to participare. That
no Ionger satisfies m ost bioethical standards.
Yet not only ha d the practice of taking nat ive blood for scientific research
without their full understanding been bypassed by modero bioethical sensibilities,
bu t th c pol itical and economic circums tances had change d as wcll. With th e open-
ing up of biotechnology and the patenting of genes and cells, exotic blood might
suddenly now have market value. If a rem ote trib esman had a rare allele, his cells
mig ht by patentablc and the products obtained from them might be valuable, as
became apparent with the application of a patent by the National Institutes of
HeaIth for a cellli ne derived fram the blood of a I Ll gahai m an from Papua New
Guinea in 1994. (The application was later wt thdrawn unde r criticism.) But this
opened up ano ther can of worms: Having been econ omically exploited for the
local knowledge of the plants and an imals around them, indigenous peopIes were
now posslbly targets for the economic exploitation of their ver y bodies. Certainly
th at's not what science s about , is t
Th e Human Genome Diversity Project was not interested in financial gain, but
unfortunaiely also did not know how to deal with the fact that there were indeed
financial aspe cts, quite possibly significant en es, to what they wanted to do. They
also soon learned th at ther principa l interest-c-the microevoIutionary history of
the human species- was of Httle rtterest lo the native peopIes whose blood (hey
sought. In rnany cases, scien ce fl at~out contrad icted their own ideas of their origins.
So how could lhey'be persuaded to participate with out Iying to them ?On e solution
Bioethics 267
was to emphasize the ultimate biomed ical benefits of genetic research, such as cur-
ing diseases like diabetes and alcoholismo But those are diseases with complex
causes, and whose treatments are not likely to be based on genetic knowIedge.
These issues heve not yet been resolved. yet they cut to the very core of th e
scientific enterp rise as it applies to hu man beings. A few decades ago. you could
n ot hope to get rch dong genetlcs: now you can. All you need is sorne skll, a lot
of Iuck, and cheap raw materials, in the form of the blood of indigenous peoples.
Un fortunately that recreates the mo st embarrassing aspects of the colon ial enter-
prise, which would g ve modern science abad name. Time was that many aspect s
ofthe relationship berween ind ustrialized natlons and ndgeno us peoples involved
taking resou rces cheapIy, add ing value to them but not sharing the profits, not
training th e local people, and even slandering or otherwise dehu rnanizing them as
a means of rationalizing the economic exploltation. Nowadays we frawn on such
mod es of intercultural contact as "colonial science," and it would certainIy not do
any great cred it to contem porary science to recreate thern.
Worse stll, greedy insensitive geneticists can be rebuffed by fundio g agen-
cies. or by their own unversity's oversig ht panels, or institution aI review board s:
but f the geneticists work for greedy pharmaceutical compa nies, or other pri -
vate interests, th ere is hardl y any ethicaI control over what th ey can do.
In 2005. th e goels of the Human Genome Diversity Project were adopted as
those of the Genographlc Project, funde d principally by National Geographic and
IBM. Without much in the way of ethicaI oversight. the Genograph ic Project tri ed
to show how good their inte nt ions were, bu t consistently irked the people whose
DNA they wanted. In 2008, they advertised a "]ourn ey of Man by Private jet" in
wh ich you could glve them $50,000 to $60.000 and comfo rtably visit sorne exotic
poo r people, wh iIe having your own DNA person ally analyzed so you can pretend
to be related to th ern! What rich jerk could po ssibly resist that!
(NAGPRA): Who Owns the Bones?
The relationship berween biological anthropology and nat ive people s has been
especially contentious. Biological anthropology began as an empirical sclence with
th e collection of diverse skulls and skeleton s. Skulls and skeletons, however, can
only be acquired in a limited number of ways. and the simplest is Dg them ur
Con sequcntly, in the latter part of the nineteenth century, many great museum
c-ollections were bult up through the wholesale robbing ofIndian graves.
A hund red years lateropublic attitude s toward Ind ians had evolved, and in
1990, Congress passcd a Jaw called the Native Ame rican Graves Protectonand
Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) that m andated the tabulation and possible rcturn of
Indi an bone s and artifacts to the trib es fram which they had been initially taken.
Th is was intended as legislation ackn owledging the coercive and callous fashon ir.
wh ich at least sorne of this material had been acquired, effectively in the interest uf
human rights.
Of cour se. more recently. most archae ologists and physical anth ropologists
have been consulting c1ose1y with the relevant native groups. and wor king together
268 C HAP TER 14 NATURE/CULTURE
in good faith. Indeed, all th ose old skeleto ns have yielde d int eresting conclusions
about prehis to ric life and death. For exampl e, it was o nce held th at peop le ch anged
from being hunter- gatherers to be ing foo d producer s because th ey re cogni zed the
obvi ous m erits of the latt er way of life. But careful analysis of skeleto ns fro m th e
time of that econornic t ran sition (whi ch occurred in di fferent parts of the worl d at
dffcrent tim es and with different foods) shows th at growing on e's own food
bro ught with it a significant irnmediate decline in the health of the pop ulati on,
detectable in th eir skeletons. We now know thi s because associated with growing
e nes own foo d is a declin e in the dive rsity of foo ds eaten, with conse que nt nutr-
tional imbalances, m ore labor involved in growi ng and prepar ing the food, and
more exposure to t he effects of dro ught o r famine. The skcletons tell us that people
didn't ado pt agricult ure bccause It was obv iously better; thcy did it in spite of ma k-
ing th eir lives hard er. Most likely, then , they felt as ifth ey were out of othe r op tio ns!
So st udyin g skcletons can yield inte resting results, and most anthropologists
are very respectful of the sens ibilities of the people who se ances tors they are study-
in g. Nevertheless, t hey were dealt a serious blow wh en sorne reactio nar y sclentsts,
who felt th eir livelihood s were being challenged by NAGPRA, filed a iawsuit
claim ing th at th eir righ t to study a Native Am erican skeleton was being violated by
NAGPRA. the federal governmen t, an d the Indi ans. The skeleton in q uestio n was
kn own as Kennewick Man, an d h e died 9.500 years ago near a river in what is now
th e state of wash ngton.
W hile the skeleto n has interesting and unexpected facial featu res, it was
declded by Federa l authorities that the skeleto n was subject to NAG PRA. an d that
th e Native Am er ican groups. who saw th e skeleton as the rema ins of a distant
an cestor, were its rightful own ers. And they did not want scientists prob ing aro und
th e remains of their "Anc ient On e '' Thc scientists responded with the cIaim th at
the skeleto n's facial featur es were "Ca ucasoid" (an ob solete anthropological term
th at used to be appl cd lo indigeno us inha bit ants of Eur opa an d sout hwes! Asia),
wh ile Indians are "Mongoloid" (an eq uivalen t obsolete ter m applied princip ally to
peoples of East Asia)- therefore ( wi th implausibly creationist logic) he could 110t
have been th eir an cesto r.
Actua lly. though, since Kennewick Man was foun d with a large spear-pom t
embedded in his pelvis, he was not very llkely to have beco anyones an cesto r in a
literal sense. Th e issue actually bo led down to on e of sy m bolic ancest ry an d
descen t: Wh at was the compo sition of hum an groups 9.500 years ago and what is
th eir relation to human grou ps today?
Tha t is not an casily an swerable question. Th e scient ists m aint ain ed th at the
Ouidity and mi grations of Am erican peop les over th c last 9,500 years ma kes it
exceedingly unl ikely tha l Ken newick Man's peop le were th e biological a n c e ~ t o rs of
the Washington tribes who c1 aim hiro tod ay. The tri bes rnaint ained th at he is an
andent Native Am erican who wandered o n th cir land th ousands of years ago. an d
t hey are Native Am crican s .....ho are therc no ....., and so he is the ir aneesto r. W ith
different notion s of wha t eons titutes anccstry and rcla tionsh ip. and no way of
proving cithe r set of c1aims, we ,""o uld seem to be at ao impasse. T his i<: \,hY an
Bi oet hic s 269
app reclatlon of anthropology is so vita l to the pra ctice of biological anthropology:
one has to be sensitive to th e cultura l1yspecifc ways of thinkin g about th ings.
Co ns ider th e basic concep t of personhood. Yo u are a pe rson, but your grea t-
great gra nd mother s no longer a p ersonoHer femur m ay sUB exlst, but not as a
part of her, for she no lon ger exists. Her parts are no Ionger "h er" but in stead are
objects, things. Her thighbonc is an "it " In other word s, death marks a tran sitio n
from perso nhoo d to non -per sonhood.
But suppose death does no t m ark a passage from perso nh oo d to non-persoo -
hood? Suppose you are th e sa me person rega rdless of wheth er or n ot you are dead,
an d regardless of th e state of deco mposition or corruptio n of yo ur bod y? If the
femur remains part of the person through birth, growt h, puberty, and ma rriage,
why should dea th necessar ily change its status? After all, even from a st rictly bo-
logical stan dpoint, that femur m ight still co ntain great-great-gra nd mas cellular
ma tter, and recoverable DNA. Ther e m ay in deed be "lfe" in the old girl yet! In th is
sense, the fem ur would no lo nger be an "It," bu t would rem ain a "she" ind efi-
ni tely- an d that fem ur wou Id become a very different kind of object.
W hich notion of pe rsonhood is scienti ficalJy corr eet? Both , an d neith er, for
pe rsonho od is a cultura l and po litical concept an d is no t affect ed by scientific
evden ce, altho ugh it m ight seem su pe rficially as tho ugh it ought to be.
Consider the irnmortality achieved by an African America n woman named
Henriett a Lacks. Over 99% of everything we kno w abo ut human cell genetics we
owe to he r. But she's no t on th e c1ass syllab us. In 1951, Ms . Lacks checked int o
Iohns Ho pkins Hospital in Baltimore with terminal cancer. As fate would have it,
that just happ ened to be the tim e and place in which biologlsts were trying to
develop th e means to cultivate human cclls in vitre, tha t is to say, "under glass'' or
out side of the body. And with her tumor cells th ey finally succeeded. An d sinc e
that tim e, her cells have proven to be more durable an d proJific than any othcr
hu man cell line: th ey are known by an abbreviation of her na me : HeLa. Great
me dical for tunes an d carecrs have been m ade on Hel.a cells, but not by Henr iett a
Lacks-c-who never even agreed to have he r cells removed and tinkered with-c-nor
by her family. And yet ther e is a sense in which she-that is to sayohe r cells-has
outlived ever yon e who o riginally took them and transforrned the m into a b o-
medi cal commodity, and will very like1y outlive us all.
Indeed, conflicting not ions of perso nhood are at the hear t of m any contem-
porary debates: Is a fetus a person? Can you take someone's pa rts atter they die. to
save a Jife or to make sorne quic k eash, or is tha t in decent e- even th ou gh th ey are
dead? 15 an adult clone a pe rson? Is a do g a person! Th at is the cont ext with in
whi ch th e Indian bones must be seen : Is an ancien t femur a pe rsoni Obviou sly the
qu estion is mos tly rnetaphysical-there are reasonable argu m ents to be m ade on
both sides . which scientific dat a do not iIlum inate. Th e an swer sirnply hi uges on
. wha t crite ria an d values you adopl in ase ribing the stat us of pcrso nho od. And that
is a cultu ral issue, not a biological one.
Personhood is one aspe ct of a bro ader spectrum uf issue s o n which p eople
hold strong opin ions lhat sound like th ey are based o n biological o r genetic facts.
1
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270 CHAPTER 14 NATURE/ CU LTURE
but are really rooted in cultu ral assum ptions. In the case of Kennewick Man, when
scientists were later permi tted to study the skull, they "discovered" tha t he did n't
100k European after all, bu t more closely resembled a Polynesian. But if the skuBs
of Indians, Polynesian s, and Europeans are so similar as to be readily confused for
on c an other by experts, doesn't that unde rminc the ostensible scientific authority
behind the determination of racial affinity by skull form?
Of course, th at logical po ssibility was not raised; the Kennewick Man contro -
versy was about unr estricted access to the bones by interested schc lars, regardless
of the sens ibilities of the othe r people around. The non-scientists' thoughts about
identity and an cestry were rend ered trivial, if not outrtght false and stupid;
although the initial cont en tion of the scientists, that Kennewick Mans Ca ucasoid
racial appearance precluded him frorrt any Ind ian ancestry, was actu al1y just as
false and stupid. But invested with th e voice of scientific authority, tha t contention
was decidedly not trivial.
This mises anot her question unique to bologcal anthropology: how do we
balan ce our scientific qucst for know ledge and our belief in the accuracy of that
scientific kno wledge, against the ideas and sensibi litics of the people whose coop -
erati on (or at least, passve neglect) are necessar y for our scient ific wor k to pro -
ceed? If we trivialize their beliefs and regard them contem ptuously, why would
the y want to help us do science? If science Is obnoxious and dismissive toward
th em , why should th ey co operatej Wouldn't you expect them, rathe r, to impede
such science wherever possible?
OR I G IN MYT HS, SC IE NTI FI C AN D O r H E RW I SE
If humans di d not evolvc, there are trem endous impli cation s for the relatonship
be tween the critical faculties we pos sess and the d iscerni ble evidence. In other
wo rds, if astrop hysics an d geology attest to the antiquity of the cosmos and the
eart h, paleontology attests to the history and succession of life, biology an d gcnet -
ics attest lo the relationships amo ng organc form s and the kinds of variations to
be found , and ant hro pology attests to the origin and diversity of the human spe-
des, then wha t kind of a deity wouId create us as related in the Bible, and then
makc it look as if He had n't! W hy would He have end owed us with th e capacity to
study and reason , if only to mslead us with false tra ils of evide nce ? Or perh aps He
created us biblically and permi tted ano ther power fuI bcing to mislead uso Why
wou ld He do that? Would either of those beings meri t your worship?
Th ese are, of cour se. not questi ons thar sciencc can add ress. As we not ed in
chapter 1, science is about asking questions who se altern a tive possible answers can
be distinguished through the col1ection of mate rial evdencc. The world of mate-
rial evidence and app earance, aided by technology and reason, are aH we (as scien-
tists) have to go on . Regard less of whethe r, for examplc, God created the cosmos
as related in the Bible and constructed a falsc trail of evidences to ma ke it look as
if we cvolved, or whether He permitted Satan l o do t, in ar der perve rsely to test
our faith, the faet remains that it looks quit e una mbiguously as if we evolved, and
Orign Myths, Scientific and Otherwise 271
therefore science is obliged to proceed on that basis. Ifwe didn't evolve, that would
raise far mo re bizarre theological questions about why it looks so st rongly like we
did, an d indeed would undermi ne the entire scientific ent erpri se of figuri ng out
how the unverse works by studying it rigorously-which ne vertheless generally
does seem to work.
If we accept the sdent iflc explanation of our origin, we are irnmediately eon -
fronted with theological questions about thc or lgn of our irnmo rtal souls. Either
(1) we evolved (or became otherwise endowcd with) souls after parting ways wilh
th e apes in the last 7 million years; or (2) th e apes have souls, and by exten sion all
species do (wh ich is compa tible "vith sorne religious traditions, such as Hin du-
sm): or (3) we are organic physical beng s, pure and simple, and do not have
im mo rta l souls.
These issues are importa nt to ma ny people, yet science cannot resolve them .
More importantly, however, science cann ot responsibly negleet the fact that it has
raised th ese issues. Many thoughtful scholars have grappled with the theologcal
or spiritual implication s of evolution, from the [esuit paleontologist Pierr e Teil-
hard de Cha rdin to the atheist biologist Richard Dawkins . In between lies a vast
midd le ground that subsumes the religious-philosoph ical reflections of the Rus-
sian Orthodox geneticist Theodo sius Dobzhansky; deist paleontologist George
Gaylord Simp son, agnostic bologist [ulian Huxley, and evangelical Christian
mol ecu lar geneticist Francis Collns. However unsatisfactory any of these meta-
physical pos itions may be, to fail to confront the impli cations of evolut ion is to
cede the ground of dscussing what evolutio n reaIly means to the Biblical literalists
and creat ionists. Th e tenacity and popularity of contemporary creation ism in
America is testimony to the signiflcance th at many Americ ans place in the thco -
Iogical implications entailed by a scientifi c und erstanding of our origins.
Anthropologists have lon g been aware that origin na rr atives fulfill diverse
fun ction s in society. When Darw in was in college, the scientists were t hemselves
theologian s, th e ear th was believed to be you ng, and death was believed to be
caused by Ada m and Eve's sin- that is, the origins of mortality and morality were
intimately link ed. A gene ration later, the ear th was tho ught to be much older, peo -
pie had arlsen from apes, and death had been deco upled from sin. One could obvi-
ou sly retain the meaning of the storyas metaphor: but t's no wonde r that cvolution
has foun d such opposition-c- it is th reatening to the very social order, at least as
that orde r was understood in the ninetccnth century.
Indeed modero creationists are a diverse lot, sub sum ing nominal Cath clics,
Prot cstants, Hindus, Moonies, Moslem s, an d oth ers, unit ed sim ply in thei r dis-
cornfiture with the sprtu al implicatons of Darwinism. Sorne reject all historical
science and maintain a Biblicalliteralist ch ronology of 6000 years for the age of the
earth an d cosmos. Sorne accept astrophysics and geology on the age of the ear th
and cosmos, but reject the Idea of com mon ancestr y for species. Sorne aceept com -
m on anc estry for large groups of anim als, positin g an ancestral divineJy created
pro genitor of lions, tigers, lynxes, pu mas, chervils, civets, and pu ssycats, but arbi-
trarily rejecting an association of cats with . say, othe r Carnvora or Mam malia or
.1
 2 7~ C H A PT ER 14 NATU RE/CULTU RE
v erteb ra ra. Sorne accept thc old eart h and a com mon ancestry for life, bu t not for
humans. An d fin aliy, sorne who sclf-identlfy as creationists accept the old earth,
and a common an cestry for life, including hum ans, bu t m ainta in the guidance of
the processes by spiri tual forces. (Many who hol d this view would self-identify as
evolutionists, too!)
In othc r words, m odero-day creationism stands jor nothing, but simply against
the proposition that the human specles arose entirely by natu ral processes from other
sp eces, and that oppositional stance seems to have broad resonan ce. No area of sci-
ence othe r than biological anthropalogy has to deai with a comparable situation.
BIOCULTURAL STUDIES, OR C YBORG ANTHROPOLOGY
Biolo gical anthro pology is embe dded in a cu ltural matrix mu ch more obvio usly
than other sciences. Th is is expressed in four ways:
I. . In com m on with all anthropology, we reIy on th e goodwill of o ur study
m aterial , for th ey are people (or other intelligent and sens itivc primates).
2. Our wo rk affects the ir ideas of who they are and whe re they come from,
which forro th e basis of cultural ide ntities, and wh ich are by consequence
inte nsely p oliticalIy contested [think of the annua I debates over celebrat-
ing Co lumbus and thc Pilgri ms, and over the role of slavery and gen ocldc
in bu ilding America).
3. We stud y the natu re and pa ttern of hum an differen ces, an d find that mo st
m eani ngful di fferences are thf' produc t ofhuman his tory and agency, and
no t root ed in nature-c-and because we recogn lze the politcal salience of
o ur science, we call attention ro (he ways in wh ich gcne tlcs and biology are
co-opted as all explanation for soc ial and p olitical inequalities.
4. We face religiou sly based oppo ston ro o ur very feld of enqu ry
Biologica l an th ropology thu s assumes greater responslb iltcs and confron ts
greater obstacles th an other scienc es. In starting with th e cult ural nature of human
exstence as an evolutlon ary fact, we can see that categoras of principal relevancc
to us are m ental. Most observable physical oc biological features (ha ir color, body
bulld, height ) are not those tha t we use to grou p people m eaningfully, although we
com m only do co nsider and study them. But -o ur pr incipal mean ingfu l group-
ings- race an d ethnicty-c-are largely cognitive ephem era, the prod ucts of a his-
to rcal mo ment in Europe an history. Tod ay we see the eme rgence of new
m eaningful cat egories-for example, Gay, Hispan ic, Sloveni an, or Mormo n- that
wer c not catcgories a Iewgen eratons ago, and yet now are identities sign fcant
eno ugh to be tabu lated and subject to legislation.
New ide ntities eme rge, and old one s evolve or are obli terated. There are no
more Hittites or Scyth ian s or Essen es amo ng us, altho ugh their descendants or
relatives m ay well be. Th cy are just no longer on the iden tity map.
One thing we can pre dict with confidence, tho ugh, is th at there will always be
an int crest in "na turalizing" thos e new identities. As lo ng as biology is believed to
Biocultural Studes, or Cyborg Anthropology 273
He at the root of difference, t can be invoked to justify existing nequalities, to
dehum anize targct groups, and to absolve ones elf of respo nsibility for behaviors
that would otherwise be intolerable. More impor tantIy, it can be used to mi sdirect
interest from the social patterns and convergenc es of interest that really govern the
co nst ruction of dentities, an d th at really are at t he heart of social inju stices.
Consider the well-do curncn ted "pop ulation explos ion." The eart h canno t
indefi nitely sus tain al ] the peopIe alrea dy alive, an d m ore are coming every day.To
th is en d, we mu st find new ways to feed the masses, and agric ultural intensifica-
tion through botechnology is the way te solve th e pro blem. Or so the agribusiness
comp anies sayoTh eir opponents thi nk th at that agrlbusness is interested pr ima r-
Ily in m arkets and proflts. and are war y of the introduction of genetica lly modficd
organ isms (GM Os) or "Pranken-foods,"
In fact, th e "too many people" argum ent has be en made by ever y generation
sin ce Thom as Ma lthus (chapter 3), and casually ignores two imp ort ant cu ltural
factors. In the first place, with ind ustrialization and econ omic mo dernzat ton
invariably com es a decline in the population growth rate, as women become ed u-
cated, enter th e work force, an d cho ose to have two children instead of seven. In
th e second place, c\'eryon e do cs not have equal access to th e food th at already
exists, wh ich is quite enoug h to feed th e world. Farm ers are subsidized to lower
production and keep pric es up, grain is stockp iled in silos. Th e problem is really
the distribution of resources, not th e quant ty of resources or the number of
mouths to feed .
Thi s is not to say that th ere is no popuIation explos i n , or that over pop ula-
tion is a good thing-bu t just that botechnology may not be the an swer to the
problem , because the problem is mi sleadi ngly framed bio1ogically rath er th an
culturally.
One of the central features of ant hropology is to pe rm it us to see and under-
stand the cultural aspe cts of osten sibly bologcal issues. In th e modero world, th is
repre sents a "hollsc" site for th e improved understa nd lng of th e nat ura l and cul -
tural existen ce of huma n groups. Thi s is co m m only called "biocultural stud es"
from th e stand point of bologtcal anthro pology or m edi cal ant hropology, where
the emphasis in on how culture and biology ar e blen dcd as we anal yze and solve
probl ems of th e hu man condton.
A sim ilar point is made in culiural anthropology with a graph ic metaphor :
th e cybo rg (chapte r 9). The phrase "cyborg anthro pology" reflects the rccognition
tha t we are simultaneously creators of culture, products of culture, and symbi onts
with culture. We create cultu re in thc obvio us sens e th at human ideas and in no va:
tion s are the basis of technological and deologlcal change. But we are also prod ,
ucts of culture in cru cial ways. Our social interface with th e world, for exam ple,
involvcs the way in which we are seen by oth ers; the way we m ove, and cover bur-
selves, and decorate ours clves- ra nging from our speech. style, attitude, and
clothing to oue haircuts, tattoos, and cosmetic surgeries. And no t only are we cre
atoes and produc ts cf cultur e, but we are also essentially symbiotic with culture -
adapting cul turally th roughout our bodies, and rescuiog or augm enting physical
 Refere nccs and Further Readin g 275
274 CHAP TER 14. NAT URE/C ULT URE
-'" '1
Reverby, S. 2009. ExaminngTuskegee: The InfamousSyphilisStudy and Its Legacy. Du rham:
function by cultural mcans. Here, examp les range from pharmacology. ar tificial
insem inat io n, an d obstetrics, through glasses and dent al filllngs, an d on to pros- Un iversity of Norta Carolina Press. . .
Scheper- Hug bes, N. 2001. Ishi's bran, Ish i's ashes: Anthropo log y and genocidc. Anthropol.
th etic limbs, joints, or organs. These thre e categories obvi ously overl ap consider-
ogy Today 17:12- 18.
ably; but the po int is tha t w e are thus inseparable from culture-people and culture Scheper-Hughes, N. 2006. Alistair Co ok's bon es: A morality tale. Anthropology Today
co-construct one anothe r-and any comprehensive sclentific approach to human
22,10-1 5.
beha vior, evolut to n, or existeu ce must lncorporate, a r at least ack nowlcdge, that. She pard, R. J., and A. Rode. 1996. The Health Consequences 01 "Modernization"; Evidence
The case of lacta se tolerance (men tioned prevou slv) shows th e powe r of the From CircumpolarPeoples. New Yor k: Cam bridge University Press. .
cultural environment in shaping both our eating habits.and g~n c po ol. After all, Slverman, S. and S. McKinnon, ed s. 2005. Complexities: Beyond Nature & Nurture. Ch -
the mutation to lacta se toler ance could only be useful aftcr on e ha s domesticat ed cago. 1L: Un iversity of C hicago Press.
cattle and has begun to breed the m for milk produ ction . It thus represents an Skloot, R. 2010. The mm ortal Lije of Henrietta Lacks. Ncw York: Crown. . . .
adaptive gen etic syne rgy wit h a situation constructed by culture, an availability of Stonc, G. D. 2002. Both sdes now: Fallacies in the gcne lic-mo dification wars, mpllcaton s
for developi ng coantries, an th ropolog cal perspectives. Current Anthropology 43:611-
rnilk th ar do esn't need to be m ad e int o chees e to be enjoyed. And tothe extent that
lactase int olera nt pe ople in Am erica may feel as though they are missi ng out on 630.
Th ornas, D. 2000. SkuUWars: Kennewick Man, Archaeology, and he nattlefor NativeAm er
som ething, like pizzas and milk shakes, culture prov ides its own solution-c-Iactase
ican denuty. New York: Basic Books. . . .
enzyme supplem ents. Tobas, P. V. 2002 . Saertje Baar tm an: Her lite, her remai ns, and th e negonau ons for th eir
If we can pau se to co nsider th e future of th e human species, we have to ima - repetrlato n from France lo Sou th frica. South African oum a ~f~cience 98: 1~7- 1 10.
gine that we wiII continue to ad apt culturally, rath er th an biologic ally. Nat ura l ~!urner, T. ed . 2005. Biological Anthropologyand Ethics: From RepatrlatlOn to Genetic Iden-
sclcction will be to o wcak and gene flow to o strong to permit much room for bio- tUy. Alban y: State Un iversity of New York Press.
logical dvergen ce. We can't expect to see much biological change in ou r species,
then, until we en counter a ne w and presen tly un im aginable set of ecological cir-
cums tances to ad apt to, an d until sorne d ram ati c popul atlon crashes and fou nder
events promete gen etc d rtft. Th at will probably havc to wait unt il the colonization
of outer space.

R EFER EN C ES AND FURTH ER R EADI NG

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 '1
I
l'

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Aesop, 48, 153 Blume nbach, J. F., 238-240

frica, 2, 12, 15, 24, 26, 27.40. 45. 82, Boas, Pran z, 14, 15, IS. 44,1 58,1 59. 245.
85-95,100,122, 124, 126,128,130, 246,254
131, 133- 135, 154, 163, 166, 182,185, bonobo, 119, 132, 156. 157,20S.211
187, 188,196, 198,200-214,217, Boyd, W. c., 239
219-221,224-2 26,2 28, 230-244, 247, Broca. P. , 14, 221
248, 254,256,257,260,269,275 Bou rgois, P., S, 18 I

Afrikner, 86, 90, 9 1 Buffon, 30. 31, 34. 37. 42, 115. 129.238.
Agas sz, L., 27. 38 239
allometry, 110. 111 Bu r t, e, 250-251
Alu repeats, 74-75 Butler, $., 63
anatomy , 15, 16, li , 21. 24. 30. 3S, 110.
174-1 76, 179,1 86, 189,1 90, 202, 215, Cann, R, 231
223 Cartmill , M. 170
aquatic ape hypothess, 166, 174 Chambers, R., 36,3 8, 44
Ardipithecus, 187, 189. 197, 20 1. 203. 207 ch mpanzee, 1, 24, 43. 71, 75. 103, 105.
Arstotle, 46, 80, 114, 238 111,11 7- 120, 122,1 24, 129-135, 138,
Atapuerca, 222 139, 141- 143. 147- 161, 164,167,1 68,
Auel, J. 223 I7I-174, 182, 196, 197, 201, 206, 208,
Austnopithecus, 7, 84,185, 196- 20S, 213, 216, 218,221 ,232,233
214 classlfcat on, 16,30.3 1,113- 117.122.
A. afarensis. S4. 204. 205 123,127,1 35- 137,1 95- 199,209,
A. afr icanus, 202, 205. 208 215-2 18
A. anamcnss, 204 Clin ton , B.. 23
A. garhi. 206, 20S colo nialisrn, 2. 3, 4. 50, 98. 99, IS7, 240,
A. sediba. 208 241.244,267
con ser vato n, 16, 108, 123, 159, 160, 184
Bacon, F.. 22 Coon. e , 230-231
Biblc, 22, 25, 26, 27,32,34, 35,43,62, 113. Co pe mcus, N., 20, 21, 198
187, 217, 237, 270 Cupp y, w., 129
Biological an thropology I , 4, 16, 17,18.80, Cuvier, G. , 32. 37, 112
256,260, 265,26 7,269,270,272, 273 cyborg, 176. 273
Black, D., 187, 220 cystic fibro sis, 65-67. 92 , 248

277
 278 IN D EX Ind ex 279

Da r wn.tCh arles, 8, 9,13, 18, 19,3 3,35, Go uld, Iobn. 8 Kimeu , Kamoya, 209-l 1t mutat ion , 52, 70, 73-76, 86, 91, 92, 104,
37- 60, 64, 75, 83,94 ,1 02, 103, 115, Go uld, Stephe n Iny, 54, 56 Klm ura, Mot eo , 53 108, 110, 125, 138, 164,1 85, 228, 232,
120,15 3,1 68, 217, 271 Gray, A.. 14 kin ship, 80, 94 -96, 1 n , 121, 2 15 253,25 7,2 58, 274
Darwin sm , 13, 15,39,44 , 47- 59,61, 12 1, Gu tcnbcrg, Iohannes, 16 Koengswa ld, G. H . R. va n. 220
264,2 71 Koko, 157 NAGPRA, 17, 267, 258
Da venpor t, C. B., 68 Haldane, J. B. S., 52 Kroe ber, A., 227 Natve A me rican , 4,1 7, 96,1 80,1 81, 237,
Dawkns, R. , SS-58, 76, 271 Harlow, H., 146 Kuh n , T homa s, 13, 19 240,24 1,260,2 67, 268:2 75
Descartes, R., 2 1 Harvey, w., 22 Newton , Isaac, 8, 9, 22, 23, 53. 7 1
D iam on d, J., 154, 2 16 Haeckel , Ern st , 15,44,50, 183,21 9 Lacks, Hen r ctte , 269 New Z ealand , 14
Dversty Project, H um an Genome Hamlton, W. D., 56 Lake Turkana, 184, 205- 210 Nge ne o, Bernard, 184, 209, 210
(HGDP), 97-99, 266, 267 Haraway, D., 176,245 Lam arc k, J.8. de. 31,3 2, 36, 37, 45, 47, 5 1, Nott, J. 242
Dobzhansky, T., 52, 271 HGD P. See D versry Proj ect, Human 52,63 ,65 , 109 Nuremberg Code, 265
d rift (gen ctc) , 52, 53 , SO, S4-92, lOS, 219, Genome Lam arckian nher tancc, 52, 63, 110
240, 243,259,274 Homo lan guage, 2, 4, 6,1 2, 14, 15, 23, 25, 67. or angutan (Pongo),49, 107, 117- 120,
Dubo s, E., 2 16 H. erectus, 183, 187, 209, 2 10, 2 18- 225, 72 , 82, 84, 157, 159,1 63,1 70, 171 , 128- 137,1 48,1 54, 159, 160, 167, 168 ,
Dukcpoo. E, 97 230,23 1 173, 196,2 04, 221 , 228, 244, 245, 174,1 96,197
H. ergaster, 209, 2 10, 213, 218. 2 19 251, 265 Oreopithecus, 124
Eldredge, N., 54 H. babilis, 209, 210 Leak ey, Lous, 130, 206, 208 Osbom, H . F., 216
Eng lan d, 4, 24, 36, 38 , 39, 14, 83- 85, 176, H. sapens , 29, 114, 221 , 222, 223, 225, Leakcy, Mary, 203, 204, 212 Owe n, R., 43
199, 214, 222, 231 230,2 33, 238,261, 263 Leakey, Meave, 184
epgen etlc, 52, 109, 110 H. sapiens Ileidelbergensis Lea key, Richard, 184, 190,209, 210 Pibo, S., 232
extlncrion, 31, 32, 35, 40 , 45, 51, 55, 98. (=H. hcidclbergensis), 222, 223 Leib niz. W. G. , 22 Palcy, 1'1., 225
106, 112,113,1 23-1 25,136, 154, H. snpicns neanderthalensis L v-Streu ss, e , 54 par allel evolution, 10, 119, 125. 185, 202
186, 192- 196, 208, 209, 218, 219, 223, (= H. neanderthalensis), 15, 44, 67, Lewon tn, R., 232 (see auo ho mop lasy)
224, 232 183- 190, 199, 2157 233 I life hi story, 146, 171, 179 Parantnropus, 150,179, 182,1 92,196, 197,
homology, 48 , 49, 153 I Lightfoot , J.. 34 202, 205- 210
Psher, R., 52 h omoplasy, 119 (see aso parallel evol uti on) I Lin na eus, c., 29, 30-32 , 42, 44, 45, 114, Pavlov,L, 63
four-feld. a-S Hoo ton, E., 15, 16, 221, 239 115,1 21,1 27, 237- 239 Pearso n, K., 230
Franc e,4, 15, 29, 222,223, 227,228, 248,275 horse, 1, 2 1, 30, 3 1, 40, 48, 49. 252 Lut her, M art n , 20 Peyre re, Isaac de la, 26. 237
Howclls, W. w.. 16 Lyell, e , 34-36, 55, 124 PKU (phyenylketonur ia), 69, 92, 93
Galileo. 2 1 Hrd llcka , A ., 15, 19 Plato, 45, 46, 238, 262
Ganen, H., 230, 23 1 Hulse, F., 246 m alaria, 69 , 76, 87, 88. 91, 10 1, Polo, Marco , 236
Gates, R. R., 27 Hu me , Da vid, 28, 33 248,2 57 pol ygenism , 27, 242
gen e flow, 52, 82, 97, 101, lOS, 185, 232, Hun tingtons cho rea, 67, 76 Malinowski, B., 259 Polyn esla, 2, 181, 239, 240. 2 70
240. 2-11,274 Hu xley, Iulian . 52, 136, 27 1 Ma lthus, T., 41, 42, Z73 Pongo. See orang utan
gcnocde, 4, 50, 9S, 154, 156, 230, 260, 272, 275 Huxley, T b om as, 15,43 , 44, 45, 52, May r, E., 42. 52, 55
gcnomk s, 4 , 52 , 68, 72 , 79. 99, l OO, 274 55,21 6 Mbeki, T., 230 race, 7, 8. 13- 16, 24,26, 27,36,42, 43,44,
gibbon (Hylobates), 30, 105, 107, , -. 120, Hylobates.See gibbon Mead, M., 249 46, 62, 158, 199, 216, 230, 231, 233,
1 ~ 1 ~ 1 ~ 1 ~1 ~ l g . ,W8 Mendel, G., 7, 52. 6.{-86, 109 236-253,260, 265, 272
Glldd on , G., 242 inbreeding, 82, 83 m eno p au se, 262 Rapp,Rayn a, S, 19
Gm elch , Geor ge, 5, 18 Indian ,4, 15, 17, 97, 18 1, 23 1, 240, 24 1, Merton , Robert , 11 robust australopt hecn es. SeeParanthropus
God,8 ,9, 15, 22-26 , 29,3 1, 33- 35, 39- 42, 267- 270 Miner, Hor ace, S, 19
46, 47, 59- 62,12 1,237, 242,270 IQ , 8, 51, 246 mtochond rlal DNA (mtDNA), 7 1, 96, 23 1, Schrodnger, E., 6, 72
Go od all, Iane, 129-131, 141, 150, 155 lcnktn . F. , SI-52 232, 232, 233, 241 selection , 6, 8, 9, 4 1, 42, SO-57, 64 , 75, SO,
gorilla, 4, 71, 75, 103, lOS, 107,lOS. 119, [ews, 68, 70, 86, 90, 9 1, 94, 241, 244-249, m olecu lar evolu tlon, 32, 53. 54. 56. 74 83,8 4,87 -9 2, 102, 103,108, 109, 152,
120, 123,1 24, 130-137, 142, 145, 146 , 260, 264 .mo nog ensm, 26, 27, 30, 43. 242 166, 168, 169, 191, 219, 232, 240, 243,
149,1 50,1 52, 156, 157, 160, 167,1 68, Mon roe, M., 163, 252 256,257, 259, 274
196, 197,201,20 7,233 Kanzi, 157, 211 Montesquie u, 5 sexual dmorph sm , 103, 130, 168,
Gorm an, J., 129 Kenn ewick ma n , 180, 186, 268.270 Mo rga n, T. H ., 65, 66, 72 169-1 79,1 82, 202, 207- 210

i
280 I ND EX
r'
Shapro.H, 246 unifonntaransm, 34, 35, 124
slckle-cell anem ia, 69. 75-77, 86-94, 102, Ussher, J., 34
248
Smpson. G. G 52, 54, 55, 136, 215. 218, 271 Vesal us, A., 2 1
Smith , A., 33 Virchow, R . 42, 50, 60, 61, 183
socobiology, 55. 5 7
specation , 54. 55. 101-108, 112, 123, 186. weddington, C. n., 109, 110.
217, 233 257
Spi noza , B" 25. 26 Wallacc. A. R.. 42
Stonekng. M" 231 wa shb um, S., 16. 19, 255
Str er, K. B.. 123. 149 Washoe. 157
Sturtevant. A.o 56 wcdenrech. F. , 187. 188. 220
weiner, J., 16
Tay-Sachs Ds ease, 6 7. 70, 77. 9 0. 91, 93. w esmarm, A., 63
94,248,249, 260 w berforce. S. 43
Tibet.2. 14 wlson. A. C., 231
Triver s. R.. S6 wtlsoo, E. O., 55
Tuskegee. 264-265 wrtght, S. 52, 85 , 88. 89, 2 19
twins, 1, 146. 148, 250. 251
Tylor, E. 8., 13, 14, 19, 158 zebra, l . 126
Tyson , E.. 24. 25, 38 Zimbabwe. Lt